The Fey, the Eagle and the Witch
by Sunshine302
Summary: Taking place in the Chamber of Secrets, a new transfer student from America entering the same grade and group as our favorite trio. Discover what makes her different and the same as her new friends and who and what she discovers in her new life. An interesting new development around 'The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe'.
1. Chapter 1

11 years and 11 months ago…  
The hospital walls were a bright white that bounced off the smell of sickening sweet medications and the sounds of groans and hushed doctor's voices. Even though the dawn had only just crept through the windows inside the white plated walls and floors outside the new born nursery, it felt as happy as a morgue on the entire fourth floor. 32 year old William had just left the nursery, where he and a nurse had taken his new born daughter, his first daughter, to walk to the elevator and return to his wife 2 floors below him. The nurse had walked out with him and turned off the lights saying that the baby needed rest before being returned to him and her mother. As he walked down the hall and entered the elevator beside a young man in shrubs he heard a blood curdling scream that whaled through the nursery and bounced off walls almost shattering windows. William turned to the young man dressed in the light blue shrubs; he looked at him with a smile and said: "That's my baby."  
Inside the nursery laid only a single baby, a little girl born on April 6th who everyone considered the Easter baby since she was one day away from being born on Easter Sunday. The little girl had a full head of brown hair, she was small and wrinkled like most babies, but unlike most she seemed to scream louder and harder than anyone could have imagined. Just as the room seemed dark and empty of all figures, except that of loud cries of the new born, the room had light up in an instant by a bright red light at the end of what looked like a simple stick and the little girl had stopped crying. For in the silence of the room where before there was the absence of anyone who could talk, 2 very old and very strangely dressed people appeared out of nowhere. Both of these people wore very long robes that covered them completely but both were different colors. One of the robes was a dark yet glittering emerald green whose wearer was a straight backed woman with black hair in a tight bun and wore square glasses that focused in on her unforgiving eyes. The other was a shimmering purple robe that was over lapped by its wearer's long, silver beard. The man was much older than the woman and his face seemed much kinder as he had bright blue eyes that were encased by half-moon shaped spectacles. The light shimmering from the end of a slightly twisting stick was held by the man and over the young girls head that seemed to mesmerize her; all of the sudden the girl smiled showing a pair of brilliant blue eyes as she reached for the wand with a slight 'coo' escaping her.  
"She's quite loud," said the older woman looking at the baby's small hands reaching for her associate's stick. Her voice had a sense ancient knowledge and higher understanding to its alto monotone. "Most babies would have gone hoarse after a minute of screaming like her, Dumbledore. I believe if we hadn't shown up and distracted her she would have shattered the windows."  
"Yes," Dumbledore said as he moved his wand up and down away from the child's grasp. "She would have broken all of the windows on this floor alone without a second thought, Professor McGonagall. And that is exactly the reason why the 2 of us and Hagrid have come here."  
"To stop a child from breaking windows?" Professor McGonagall eyed Dumbledore as the baby grabbed his wand with her small hand and looked at the light in 'aw'. The girl began laughing heartily and loudly and Dumbledore smiled showing perfectly white teeth. "Where is Hagrid, if I may ask?"  
"Ask if you like, he should be here in a few minutes. I gave him the directions strict and straight forward: Roanoke, Virginia, United States of America at the Roanoke Memorial hospital on the 7th floor in room 419."  
"As we both know Hagrid has a bit of a problem at being subtle and none noticeable around muggles ; so of course I'm worried."  
At that precise moment a giant of a man had appeared in the hallway through a door at the far end and had quickly walked to the room as fast as he could. Opening the door the man tried to squeeze himself in, but the entire process looked a lot like trying to squeeze an elephant into a clown car. Once the man had squeezed through, which took much wiggling and pushing, he had staggered towards the 2 people. The man had unruly black hair with a beard to match and wore a brown coat, pants, and a pair of giant black boots as well as carrying a pink umbrella that was tiny in comparison to the rest of him.  
"Can you believe it," the man said as he stopped in front of the 2 people, sweat slightly punching through the skin above his brow. "I lost me way back from Hogwarts ter here. I mean this entire statue of a buildin's just as sad and ugly on the inside as it is on the out; an' each room looked the same so I couldn't tell where I was an' where I wasn't!"  
Just as he had finished Hagrid had raised his arm to wipe off the top of his forehead and looked down to see a small baby girl holding the end of Dumbledore's wand. At first the girl's face look desolated of any thought or emotion but just as quickly it had light up into a hysteric smile. Taking her hands off Dumbledore's wand she began clapping them together and laughing as she looked up at the giant man who resembled much like an un-kept teddy bear.  
"Oh my goodness," Hagrid said as he carefully put his hands around the young girl and picked her up, holding her over his head as she kept smiling and giggling. "This has ta be the most happy child I ever seen. An' look at her eyes! They got the whole sky shinin' in them an' she ain't even ever seen it yet!"  
"Hagrid please put the child down," Professor McGonagall says with an exasperated breath but still the same stern look. "We don't want any muggles coming in to see a stranger holding a new born baby for no apparent reason."  
"Not to worry Professor," Dumbledore says, also enjoying the look of pure enjoyment on the child's face. "I have made it so that all the nurses will be busy with paper work or stopped at elevators and such other little charms as well."  
"Sorry Professor," Hagrid says slightly glum as he puts the still smiling back in her small plastic bed that resembles half of a fish tank. "Just got all excited. The girl really does resemble Monterrey with them big blue eyes. But Dumbledore that's the question: Why she got blue eyes instead of green ones like her dad?"  
"Her eyes will turn green as she gets older," Dumbledore says as he pets her head lightly and she grabs his hand that is bigger than her entire head. "All of the magick that comes from her is just focused in her eye color right now and as she gets older it will spread throughout."  
Professor McGonagall bent her head slightly and looked down at the little girl and smiled to herself.  
"She seems like a smart girl," she said in a short breath and then she looked up at both Dumbledore and Hagrid with the same stern look. "You are certain that she is in fact related to Monterrey Zummary?"  
"Yes," Hagrid said in a quick bolt of energy as he fumbled through his giant coat until he rung out a yellowish piece of paper that was slightly bent and worn. "Says in here that the 2 of 'em are related from a long time back by some ancestors. Sometime a real long time ago somewhere in either Scotland or maybe even in the ancient Mezzo Americans... doesn't say where or when really just that they are."  
"Who would have thought that Monterrey Zummary's powers could be connected to a child of muggles from a country away?"  
"You forget Minerva," said Dumbledore as the child began playing with his fingers. "All muggles do have some magick ability if they try; just some aren't born with it. If this one grows and tries to study magick before anyone else sees her, then we shall invite her to Hogwarts."  
"And if she doesn't?"  
"Then her magick ability inside her will reside and not come out. It is as simple as this: If she truly wants something to happen, she'll have to try and make it happen."  
"Ya hear that little girly," Hagrid said as he crouched down next to the crib to see her closer. "Ya got ta try and become a witch on yer own so we can come an' see ya again. Just go and pretend ta use a wand on yer own or read old fairy tales an' such so's you can come an' study at Hogwarts."  
"She'll have to start a year late," Professor McGonagall said. "Just so we're clear, but I want her in the same year as the people her same age. I'm afraid if we start her late and keep her back she won't excel as well."  
"No worries on that end," Dumbledore said as he took his hand away from the young girl and tucked a tuff of hair that stuck up on her head back behind her ear. "Besides, I expect her to make some great friends as well as do great things."  
"Hopefully the American Magick Society will agree to send her to Hogwarts before any other school."  
"Well o' course they will," Hagrid said joyfully as he took his eyes off the baby. "Monterrey's a genius in his house in Hogwarts, an' only a right bloke would send her anywhere else. I mean there are only a few magick schools out there an' they're all up in Europe. No American school here's got an ounce of decency or talent!"  
The little girl had laid back down on and looked at the strangers in joy as they talked. One would think she could actually understand what they were saying as her smile showed her gummy mouth and the slits around her eyes stretched over to her ears.  
"Yes," sighed Dumbledore once again as he looked at both Professor McGonagall and Hagrid in a silent understanding that their stay here was about to end. "The Zummary legacy is infamous, but I'm sure she will do great things at Hogwarts. If not, she'll do great things in general." Dumbledore patted her hand one last time and removed before she could grab one of his long, wrinkled fingers. "I will see you soon, Healy."  
Just as one takes in a breath and does not notice it until they have exhaled it so would one believe that the light and the people had gone just as soon as they came. Little Healy's smile had disappeared in the bewilderment and been replaced by quick sideways glances with her head. Confused and scared of her surroundings she began to whimper and kick feet quickly, as if to keep her from drowning in water. But before she could demit a sound above a scared whimper a nurse had quickly rushed with the whip of the door swinging behind her as she turned on the light that seemed able to blind anyone with the brightness hitting the dark room.  
-11 years, 10 months, and 30 days later-  
Most people Healy's age spend gym playing basketball, talking with their friends, and running around in general. It was almost sad that Healy's choices were limited during her free time since she didn't have many friends. Sitting on the blue, side line benches of the indoor school gym Healy's nose was buried in a book entitled "Friendly spirits and terrifying apparitions" that was hidden on the inside of her large history book. Healy had had some trouble before about reading books about the paranormal before, mostly teasing, so she began hiding her rented treasures the best she could to enjoy them in public areas. Even though the gym was filled with sneaker squeaks on the wood floor, basketballs knocking into the ground and back up, and the uncontrolled volume of people talking, all of Healy's energy was focused on extracting as much entertainment from the words settled in the pages as possible.  
Healy took a more than casual enjoyment with books and subjects about the abnormal as they interested her immensely and gave her a picture of somewhere more exciting and interesting to live.  
"If only," she whispered under her breath as she flipped the page to the chapter entitled 'How to distinguish good ghosts from bad.' "I would trade scrubbing toilets and mopping floors for this any minute of the day."  
The truth was Healy worked part-time with her mother as a house keeper at the old folks home for pocket money as her mom was a manger. Healy had been working there since last summer and did not enjoy the work very much but had a nice enough time with the people. A lover of history Healy often listened to their stories but she also felt a cringe of resentment for the fact she was mostly on her hands and knees scrubbing floors and carrying carts of sheets back and forth, room to room, to make up beds. When the chance to get a job came she jumped, but as middle school rowed on as a river of melted lead and her work often left her with a sore back, Healy came to distance herself even more.  
As she continued to read on Healy felt a sudden bolt of pain leap up in her lower back, a parting gift from a weekend of scrubbing the kitchen floors and an all-nighter on her pre-algebra homework, Healy lowered her books and began to gently message her lower back to rid the evil pain. While doing so she peered over at the students on the court and studied their faces, clothes, and actions.  
"All the same," Healy thought to herself as she straightened up. "Everyone here wears the same clothes and says the same thing, and they all act like it's something new and original…."  
Resentment for her fellow classmates followed Healy from elementary to middle school as "has trouble getting along with others" seemed to be the label glued to her. As others liked to watch reality shows and listens to the top 20 Healy preferred books, old movies, and music that her 40ish father listened to. It was not only an inability to understand and enjoy the same activities with others that kept Healy from getting along with others but also what felt like a glass barrier to the girl. For the longest time since she could remember Healy had always found herself in and out of strange situations through strange situations. Once Healy had fallen down a flight of steps by accident while carrying a stack of books that toppled above her head and as she found herself on the ground floor, closing her eyes for the expected impact of the large books the gravity was sure to meet; she found that a minute later she all of the books had landed in a perfect circle around her. Another time she was climbing up a tree behind her family's apartment and once she reached the top her foot had slipped. Expecting to plummet to a painful ground, which at the time (her being only 7 at this time) expected to be her death she was met by just a rather uncomfortable "bumb!" and saw that she had landed on the bottom-most branch of the tree that was covered with many leaves. When telling the tales of these incidences people would call Healy a liar and tease her by trying and recreate these incidents for public display. These only went as far knocking her off the bottom-most stair or pushing her out of her chair while holding things or down a hill near the playground. Healy knew that is she told any teacher nothing would be done to help her, or possibly make her situation worse, and that the best way to stop all of it was just not tell anyone when something strange had happened. Even her parents had started to say that it was Healy's overactive imagination that created these fantastic rescues.  
Soon a long, high pitched whistle had screeched through the room and Healy and the rest of the students automatically sprung up, like a half-asleep man to an alarm, and proceeded into the separate dressing rooms. Walking into the girl's bathroom Healy had felt insecure as any girl and had taken to taking her clothes out of her small foot locker and changing behind the shielded curtains of the shower room. No one truly noticed this in Healy's mind as each time people would just carry on with their conversations, unnoticing the small girl passing them by. Healy was fairly short for her age, about 4 ft. 9in, she had a mole on her right cheek next to her nose and above her lip. She had long, dark brown, curly hair that she kept down to hide her developing body (which did nothing as her hair was shoulder length). Healy was nothing special to look at, she was pretty in a very childish, cute way and since she hid herself under a jacket most of the time no one could see her developing womanly characteristics. The most striking thing about her was her big, bright green eyes that most people would agree as being her best feature.  
Healy changed in the same place every gym period: behind the shut curtains in the shower room where most people were not in. As Healy stepped in she noticed 3 girls talking outside of it, each of them were extremely skinny and wore an Abrocrombie shirt and skinny jeans. Healy didn't like brand clothes. As Healy went in she picked a stall near the back and went into it while shutting the curtains, most of the stall's curtains were open and not shut unless someone came in. As Healy took off her shirt she noticed the accelerated talking and giggling coming from the door way and the sound of the girl's voices getting louder. No one took a shower after gym, it was considered rude and disgusting if someone used the school showers as rumors said that people who showered in the school were either homeless or had lice. Healy ignored it, taking off her gym shorts, as idle chit-chat to keep the girls out of going to their next class. As Healy picked up her regular school shirt, a long purple sleeved V-neck with blue butterflies all over it, the girls had suddenly pulled back the curtains of the shower and looked as if they were there to tell good news, but their stare had a menacing glare to it.  
"Why not try and wash all the ugly off yourself, freak?"  
At that very moment, before anything could be said or done, one of the girls reached over and turned the nozzle behind Healy on full blast and jumped back. The water that hit Healy was icy cold and made her sink to the ground from both shock and embarrassment. All of her clothes were getting wet and her wild, curly hair clung to her face as it was weighed down by the water. Healy wasn't hurt, nothing felt bad except the sickening feel of the ice water running down her spin and over her body. Once the girls stepped back from her they began laughing and pointing, encouraging others farther away in the locker room to do the same; a few girls even approached the bathroom to find out why they were laughing.  
Pain and chilliness crept away from Healy as embarrassment faded away into rage. The redness and heat on her cheeks spread to her arms and chest and she could feel blood pulsating all through her body as her breath increased. Everything around her was cold, people, water, the floor, all she wanted was for these girls to pay and for warmer water. To Healy's surprise the water did start to turn warm on her back, a lukewarm feeling but better than before. But the ground was no longer just cold, it felt like static had started to run on top of the floor and pulsate around, as if searching for an outlet. Everyone saw the lights in the locker and shower room flicker for a few seconds, the shock made people stop laughing and look up. The other girls in the shower room took a few steps back, away from the running water that was still splashing on Healy, and in an instant began a histerical scream. All of the other showers in the shower room had gone on, full blast; they were spewing streams of boiling hot water around the girls and creating a steam bath that lost them all in the mist. The other girls in the locker room began to scream as well, summoning a female gym teacher from her office who shouted for everyone to calm down. The shower room girls ran out, soaked and screaming as if they were attacked instead of sprayed, and Healy stood up and glided her way out. As Healy carried her soaking wet clothes at of the shower room she felt a sly smile creep on her lips.  
"Not what I had in mind," Healy thought to herself. Truthfully she wanted the girls to be more humiliated than she was to show them how it felt. "But it was still a nice treat."  
Just as she stepped out of the shower room all of the shower were suddenly turned off. As if someone had turned them all off one by one in the time frame of a minute. Healy looked back at the shower, confused and trying to remember exactly how that could of happened, and then looked down in astonishment at her clothes. They were dry! As if they had come out of the dryers only 5 minutes ago! They were warm to the touch and had not even a drop of water on them. Healy quickly changed in the confusion of the moment as all the other girls were trying to figure out what had happened, grabbed her book bag, and headed out the door to history class.  
"Okay," Healy said aloud to herself as she quickly walked away from the gym like a murder scene in the back of a Burger King. "That was out-of-the-usual."  
Healy had stopped using the term "weird" since it was an adjective used to describe her and she found being "weird" more enjoyable than being "normal." She also never used "freaky" because it sounded 80's or "norm" because she found it idiotic not to just say "normal."  
As Healy walked to her class she noticed she was the only one in the hallways.  
"Right," Healy said as she stopped dead in the center of the hallways, obviously in no hurry anymore. "The bell hasn't rung yet..."  
As Healy walked up to her classroom se slid down on the side of the wall and sat on the floor pulling her knees to her chest and resting her head on the back of the ball to look up at the celling. All of the windows were inside the classrooms so Healy had nothing to look at for the next 5 minutes besides her book, but her hands and hair were still wet and she didn't want to ruin the pages. Healy often felt a hopeless feeling of dread and boredom occur over her during these few, sweet moments when no one was around. She felt the constant need for stimulation and activity was the only thing that kept her from going mad. She re-ran over what had happened in the locker rooms 5 times before she could feel like she had a logical explanation occur.  
"The faucets were leaky and they must have been jolted out of place by the pressure of the cold water, a small earthquake could of happened as well to explain how the hot water turned on. The teacher came out and pulled the water pressure and control to make all of the showers turn off as I walked out and nothing else happened. But my clothes..."  
Healy looked down at her perfectly dry clothes, the only thing that was damp was the black jacket Healy had thrown over herself as she left and that was only because her hair had fallen over it. Healy was sure her clothes had become wet, she was even holding her wriggling shirt as the water fell on her. Then something occurred to her; the rest of the body was bone dry as she walked out of the shower rooms too. Even her underwear was dry! This is a predicament that Healy put a lot of thought into. Was there a logical explanation for all of this? Could there be one?  
Inside Healy's head she searched for one in the ever closing minutes of class switches. But even as history loomed closer, the history of Einstein, Eisenhower, and Thomas Edison came closer Healy could only think of all the things that she day dreamed of. Something out of my control, something supernatural helped me.  
That was the only reason Healy needed to believe it, the simple thought that she wanted it to be real made it logical enough for her. As she got up the bell rang and Healy entered her classroom as everyone else left. Healy spent the hour in class fixated on all the reasons why it had happened, how it could of, and how she could never tell anyone. This was a story she was to share only with herself; but what a story it was...


	2. From Germany to Diagon alley

-The next day…-  
It was a partly cloudy morning at 8 o'clock when Healy woke up to her usually messy room. Healy shared her small room with her sister in their family's apartment, so limited space was only the daily dose of head ach and eye sore. Healy's bed itself was half way coved with different books Healy was reading and didn't want to be too far away from; books and a sketch pad filled with portraits and plants that Healy doodled or fixed in between readings. As she balanced herself in a sitting position by leaning on her elbows Healy noticed how her hair began to fall into its wild bed-head design; as every morning Healy always woke up to disastrous bed-head that would foretell how her hair would act up for the day. Healy smiled to herself and gave a silent giggle at the thought of what she must look like. She actually looked forward to her hair in the mornings as it was always wild and spontaneously extravagant, her chestnut brown hair was usually very curly and fluffy so she was used to having trouble keeping it in place.

Healy always slept at the bottom edge to her bed as it was closest to the window; Healy could only fall asleep under the moon or stars and loved to wake up with the sun greeting her first thing. She caught several birds fly past her window and watched several clouds role by before she decided to stretch out her arms and get out of bed. Once she landed on her feet she walked over to the dresser that was situated at the end of the room with a mirror on it (Healy and her sister had 2 separate dressers that were side by side and separated by the shared book case) and examined herself. Her hair was wildly flipped this way and that with the stray ringlet falling over. She wore a pair of pajama pants with the cartoon character known as "Gir" from the TV show "Invader Zim" (about a stereotypical alien) and a long T-shirt with the Red Hot Chili Pepper's symbol on it (one of her dad's old ones). The shirt fell over her hips and showed no definition of her chest, which made her happy as she wasn't yet used to herself. She tired around twice in a spinning motion to wake herself up and stopped herself from falling over at the last minute and laughed at the end.

"Yeah," Healy said to herself as she smiled at the mirror. "I'm 12 today."

Turning around Healy walked over to her bed (one side of it was situated up against the wall to save room so she was directly under the sun) and went over to the left side that was nearest to the door and at the top had a night stand. Inside the night stand Healy had a copy of "Raising Down the moon" and "Alchemy" as well as a mirror and a pack of tarot cards. Last year Healy's favorite aunt sent her a pack of the traditional style tarot cards for Egypt where she was on a trip. The aunt herself was a very distant cousin on her mom's side and was from gypsy's heritage and living with a pack of traveling gypsies. Healy's mom was related to her and her family from a great-great-grandmother from Greece who married a French man and moved to America; they somehow all kept in contact over the years as a way to keep the family together. Healy shuffled the deck and pulled out a single card, this was the card that was going to predict her day.

From the very top of the deck she slid off the card and turned it over to reveal "The Fool". Contrary to the name The Fool was actually an indicator of good fortune. Connected with new beginnings and spiritual power Healy found it a nice treat to wake up to as she put the card back into the deck. Not feeling like doing any other reading (it was too early in the morning and she didn't exactly know what she wanted) Healy put the cards back into the drawer and lay back on the bed to contemplate the meaning.

"Well it is a Saturday," Healy said to herself while pondering. After a tarot reading she always thought about it hard to see if she could see what it meant. "I don't really think this has anything to do with my birthday, but I can't let the idea pass. And with yesterday…"

With that thought Healy quickly leaped out of bed and began dressing in her regular clothes. What had happened yesterday was still a mystery to her that she couldn't write off as a bunch of normal coincidences; truthfully she didn't want to write them off as anything normal. Once Healy had pulled on a pair of jeans and a sparkly purple long sleeved shirt she sat back on the edge of the bed and looked at her feet. This was a position she usually took when thinking about something important to her and she couldn't get the question of yesterday out of her mind. A few minutes later Healy saw her sister coming running into their room. Calliope was Healy's junior by 2 years who still slept beside her mother and had a bad habit of kicking things in her sleep. Calliope's face was screwed into an angry scowl and her hair (same color and shape as Healy's) that was pulled into a braid last night was now sprawled out everywhere. This was her usual look when she was mad or jealous, it was a face she wore around Healy much of the time.

"Where's my Gameboy," Calliope bellowed at Healy in her deep tenor voice. Although Calliope and Healy were both very small Healy had developed a deep alto voice while Calliope developed a tenor. Half of the reason for Calliope's voice was from frequent screaming quarrels.

"I don't have your stupid Gameboy." Healy knew this was the way Calliope accused people of stealing her precious toys and clothes and Healy was usually her first (if not only) suspect. Healy was telling the truth, she didn't enjoy video games as much as her sister and didn't know where it was.

"It's not stupid! You're stupid! You stole it!" Calliope didn't believe Healy as she generally thought her sister was always after her things. Calliope was extremely spoiled and whenever anything went missing or broke she would automatically blame someone, even if it wasn't true.  
It was this aspect of her sister that Healy disliked most. Of course she didn't like the nit-picking, the big headedness, or the loud mouth aspect of her but it was her spoiled-princess behavior that Healy couldn't stand. Healy had taken the side car role in the family life due to her sister's need for attention and took a part time job so that she could have money to spend on herself because Calliope had become as expensive as 3 children in the last 2 years. Healy pursed her lips on one side while drawing the other into it as she did when she was annoyed; this made her small pink mouth look like a bubble gum ball next to her nose. Her cheek settled above her screwed lips and her eyes looked past yet directly at her sister as she shook her head in disapproval. Healy's sister's spoiled-ness appauld her.

"No one stole it you idiot. You probably lost it."

"No! You stole it!" Calliope was now breathing hard and turning red, an indicator that Healy was making her mad or that she was about to throw a hissy fit. Calliope bent her legs slightly and bent her arms and balled her hands into tight fists; with anyone else a hissy fit was on the floor crying while flaring her legs but with Healy it was a full on fight.

Healy didn't want to fight so early in the morning plus fighting with her sister meant having a foot thrown in her face and nails clawing at her eyes and neck. Her sister couldn't hit or kick, she could only throw her weight into a series of kicks and scratch with long nails, but she was vicious with this and didn't stop. Healy wasn't really a better fighter either, although she knew how to throw a punch well and how to pull people off and below her she wasn't very fast. It was the fact that Healy never backed down from a fight that kept her going and seeing her sister poised and ready made her stand up, her fixed scowl into a slight grimace and her arms folded below her chest. Just at that moment their mom walked behind Calliope with an enraged face.

"Will you 2 shut up already," she screamed at the 2. Suzann, nicknamed "Pippy" in the house, was a stout woman with a long face, slightly big front teeth, a pointed nose and dyed red hair. With her wearing her white night shirt and flannel night pants it was easy to tell she had just woken up without wanting to, she normally slept till noon on her days off. Her face was red and her eyes were bulging and her fingers with their long fake nails were clenched into fists. Neither of the girls wanted to be slapped by their mom, Healy never fought back and when Calliope did she often came out crying on the floor with more scratch marks then her mother. It wasn't an abusive home, but everyone in the house knew that each member was violent and to respect that or face consequences.

Calliope slouched over to give herself a hunch back but her face was still screwed, Healy didn't change but walked past her sister and her mom and down the stairs to the living room. The living room really couldn't be called a "living room" because it took up most of the downstairs (that consisted of a small bathroom, half sized kitchen and a hallway that the stairs stopped at and connected the front door across from the living room) but more of a small studio in which her dad lived in. William Restrepo slept on the couch and tried his best to separate his living space from his wife; the 2 had problems but nothing that was abusive, more annoyed with each other than anything. He also took the liberty of separating most of his items and business away from the girls, which was much different than their mother who often had nothing better than to talk about her work and left her things everywhere like Calliope. William was in the kitchen fixing himself a bowl of cereal (Raisin Bran, the staple for him and Healy) when Healy came in.

"Mornin' Shorty," he said as he poured milk over his cereal in the bowl. "Shorty" had been Healy's nickname since she was little just as Calliope's had been "Pee-wee".

"Mornin' dad." Healy got herself a bowl and spoon and began to make her own breakfast as well.

"Happy Birthday."

"Thanks." Healy never really liked it when other people celebrated her birthday, in all truth she would rather spend it alone because it felt like she had to be having fun every minute when she celebrated it with her family. Both Healy and her dad sat on the couch he used for a bed and ate breakfast while watching Saturday morning cartoons. A ritual Healy took general pleasure in because both her and her dad enjoyed watching the old Justice League cartoon and Batman, it was like her father was more of an older brother.

"What do ya wanna do today Shorty," he asked while shoveling in a spoonful of cereal, his eyes not leaving the television for an instant.

"Don't know, don't really care." Healy watched and ate until her bowl was finished and she took hers and her father's into the kitchen to rinse out. Once Calliope came down she was nose deep into the Gameboy she had "lost" and almost ran into Healy while playing, perhaps on purpose. Healy furrowed her brow as she walked away as she knew she wouldn't be getting an apology for being wrongfully accused. Pippy came down the steps while grumbling about not being able to sleep in the house as she walked into the kitchen. Healy quickly left as she knew her mother was going to make coffee and since the kitchen was so small her mother would be yelling "move" at her for no true reason.  
Healy didn't leave the kitchen quite yet though, her mother always brewed a serving of Columbian coffee that smelt so amazing that Healy stuck around to hear it bubble and smell it waft throughout the kitchen. Healy didn't drink coffee, and if she ever did it was with lots of sugar and milk. The smell of coffee was always a treat whenever it was brewed. From the back of the room Healy heard her father talk, loudly talk from the living room to the kitchen, about what she wanted to do with Healy today.

"Why," Pippy asked while walking out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"It's her birthday today," Will replied without hiding his distaste for Suzann's forgetfulness. The 2 hadn't gotten along in years; today wasn't going to be any different.

Healy laid her head back on the wall and blocked out all the sounds coming out. Healy always was sensitive to loud noises as well as too much noise and she could sense a fight coming on. Nothing unusual but it was aggravating and tiring to listen too. To block them out Healy went into her own mind to think about yesterday, what had happened and how. There was nothing she would give to have something like that happen again, right then so she wouldn't have to hear it again.

In a moment Healy could feel what felt like static run up and down her arms and her eyes imediently opened. Everything in the house was the same as a minute ago but she still felt what was like static running around her and in the kitchen. Healy stood up and walked backwards and out of the kitchen because she felt as if something was about to pop, as if the air itself was about to open up and expunge something. Before Healy could even ask if anyone felt anything weird what was like a loud pop and a slight burst of mist came out of the doorway from the kitchen following a tall woman stepping out.

"Woo," the woman said while combing back a lock of curly black hair from her face. "Now that wasn't fun. Took me 3 whole times to find this place and I appararte on hard ground. This is no fun."

The woman stepped out of the kitchen and stared at the family with a smile on her face, she was very pretty. The fact she was pretty didn't cross the family's minds though. The woman had appeared out of nowhere so suddenly and without a trace. Thoughts swiveled through all of their minds: Bomb? Gun? FBI? Santa sent one of his little, er, big helpers too early? The woman simply looked at them and then behind her.  
"I smell coffee. I shall get some. You do not mind, no?" Not waiting for an answer she walked back into the kitchen and soon came back out of the kitchen and into the living room while holding a cup filled with coffee. After several sips she stared at the cup with distaste and then looked back at the group of people. "Terrible. Coffee has gone bad. No good. I am looking for a Ms. Healy. She is 12 now, no?"

The woman was about 5 ft. 7 in., had long and wild black hair that stretched to her lower back, and a dazzling pair of ice blue eyes. She was so pale that she looked like she was made of snow and her black jeans and leather jacket only sharpened the contrast of her skin. She looked left to right and then her eyes landed on Healy, standing there alone, and the woman smiled brightly.

"Lovely to meet you my dear," she said as she placed my hand in hers and gave a light shake. Her deep voice remained enchanting as it was very foreign and had an air of bright culture to it; it must be from Russia or somewhere in Eastern Europe. "I'm so glad you have grown into a nice young lady, and your eyes are just like the description!"

Healy was fringed on the end of confusion, the woman was looking right at her and talking directly to her as if they had known each other for awhile; but Healy had just seen her! Not only that but everyone in the house was more than a bit flabbergasted at the fact a woman could just appear out of thin air like nothing. Healy looked down to her hand and saw the long and elegant extension of the woman gripping it firmly and decorated with a large ruby ring and decked out in multiple multi-jeweled bangles.

"Ummm," trying to think of something to say, anything to say, Healy looked to her parents frightened faces and then back to the woman's calm expression. "Good morning…?"

The woman set her cup down on the table that the family used for laundry and with her 2 free hands she took Healy's left hand in them and gave them a light squeeze.

"My, pictures do no justice. You are very cute, very pretty with those big green eyes." The woman moved a lock a curly brown hair behind Healy's ear and smiled. "Why, you almost look like one of Mongommery's little 'winklers' he likes to paint so much."

"What do you think you're doing," Will shouted making Healy's head twist back and look at him. He was standing up but was leaning most of his weight on his bad leg, never the less he was still an opposing figure and looked incredibly angry. Confusion comes second in nature to him.

"Let go of my daughter and get out now."

The woman let go of Healy's hand but instead of looking scared she simply smiled and walked over to Will.

"You must be the father," the woman said as she pulled something out of her pocket. It was a small folded up piece of paper and she handed it to him with a steady hand. "I am sorry this is a surprise. My phone is on fritz and it is very annoying to send letters through muggle- I mean, non-magickal methods."

Will looked down at the piece of paper and then back up at the woman with now a more confused than angry face. "Who are you?"

The woman smiled and took his hand in hers and gave it a light shake.

"My name is Devina. Devina Kraus. I am from the Depratment of International Magickal Cooperation for America." She then looked over at Healy with a smile. "I am also the appointed God Mother for this Winkle."

Will shock his head while looking at her and opened the paper and quickly read down it.

"This may be very confusing," Devina said while tapping a finger to her chin and looking at him. "I say: Your daughter has inherited something very special, something no non-magickal person can get, and I am here to help her understand it."

Pippy and Calliope were more than confused, to the point they had both stepped back and looked at William for help. Will read over the piece of paper and looked up at her.

"Department of Magick," he said with suspicion seething out of his teeth and looking at Devina. "What in the world is that?"

"Were I work," she said very matter 'o factly and looking at Will while holding hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels.

She looked as if she was bored but also trying to make everyone understand what was happening.

"What do you mean," Healy started. Healy walked up to Devina and looked up at her with wide eyes. She was more in tune with what was happening and looked incredibly excited. "I mean, what do you mean when you say 'Magick'?"

Devian smiled and sat on her knees while looking up at Healy. "Why child, you no know? You are a witch!"

The thought battered on in Healy's head as she looked at Devina and mouth the word under her breath to herself over and over. "Witch."

"Yes, yes, yes. Witch. That is who you are. You know, when you think very hard or feel very frightened or strong you make things happen."

Healy remembered yesterday and other days when things happened which she couldn't explain and looked down at Devina.

"You're... joking? I mean, you have to be."

Devina twisted her bottom lip a bit and then held Healy's hands into hers. "I don't have to be anything, and this is truth. You are a witch. You have a connection, a magickal connection with a power source so vast and incredible that it has laid in your family's heritage for years. It is strong magick, magick that cannot be controlled unless it was suppressed until you were ready to use it." Devina squeezed Healy's hands tighter and smiled. "And now you are ready! You have started your" growing up" and the magick inside of you is growing tired of being dormant. Now, you have the ability to control it."

Healy and Devina looked at each other, each trying to look and understand what was going on in each other's minds. But Healy's mind was black, all she could think of was the idea that she was being called a witch; in a good way.

"Oh," Devina started as she let go of Healy's hands and went into her pocket and pulled out an envelope with Healy's name written in black ink and a red stamp on the back. "For you, from your school."

Looking down at the letter Healy let her fingers study the texture until they got to the top and slowly ripped it open and gently pulled out a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it she looked at the top and read the first sentence out loud:

"Dear Healy Restrepo,  
Your are officially invited to attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in England."  
The sentence spun in her mind and did summersalts in her brain as she tried to process this until finally Healy's mother said something.

"She already goes to school," Pippy shouted. Her voice sounded angry and had a tone of superiority to it. 'And if that school is in England there's no way she could go! It's too far away and it would be too expensive!"

"Ah," Devina said as she stood up with a smile and looked at Pippy. " You must be mommy!"

"Yuck," Healy said under her breath to this. It had been years since she called Pippy "mom" and it had been even longer since she thought of her like that.

"You have alumni," Devina said while looking at everyone in the room. "Healy's magick, her magickal ability, is very spiritual and it is connected to a very old family known as Zummary. The family is an old friend of my family and their last son, Montgomery, was a graduate over 5 years ago." Devina chuckled for a minute and looked up again. "Actually, he was a 'you genius' and started when he was 7; so he graduated very early."

"I don't care," Pippy spat out. She was holding Calliope close to her and Calliope was looking terrified at the woman. "She can't do it. No money, no parents, no home; she'll have nothing!"

"Wrong again," Devina sang. Healy smiled at this, she had never seen anyone stand up to her mother with pure logic so calmly before and it was very funny. "She has money, money from the Zummary's. To be more specific, Montgomery has given consent to support Healy financially. Also, I will be her guardian." Devina looked over at my dad and bowed her head. "I am her appointed God Mother from the Zummary head, I knew them well. I can take care of Healy very well. And for a home, Hogwarts is a boarding school. She will live inside the castle."

"Castle," Healy screamed and looked up at Devina. "I... I get to live inside a castle!?"

Healy had lived in a tin apartment most of her life, the idea of a giant castle was overwhelming; and the thought of living in one was bigger than any dream she had ever had.

Devina smiled widely showing her teeth and her eyes were wide with excitement. "So you want to go?"

Taking Healy's hands in her's Devina looked hopeful and excited. "You want to go, yes?"

"Yes," Healy said excitedly and began shaking Devina's hands. "Yes, yes, and a hundred times yes! This is amazing!"

Healy looked at her father; Healy could hear her mother shout "no" but to Healy her mother was nothing but a stranger and her father the real authority.

"Please dad," Healy said in a desperate tone. She could see the dangerous side of this but what she focused on was the literal magick of it."Please? It's all I want, it's all I'll ever want. Please?"

Will's face contorted and looked down and turned and shook and went a hundred different directions as he physically moved the idea around in his head. He finally looked at Healy with his own bright, green eyes; Healy could see her father's old age in those eyes.

"Do you really... really want this?"

"Yes."

Will walked over to Devina and she stood up and looked at him. He held out his hand and Devina, her face lighting up like a child looking at a Christmas tree, and took into both of her hands. "You better take care of my daughter."

"I will," Devina said excitedly and happily. "I shall! Oh! Healy we have so much to do! I shall teach you the basics of the magick and the potions and, oh! I shall get you a wand! And some new clothes, no, you can have my old ones. Oh this will be so much fun!"

"No!" Pippy shouted over from her corner. She hadn't moved and looked upset at the idea that her opinion was being ignored. "I won't let this happen! This can't! William! Do something now! Do something!"

Will looked at Devina embarrassed and rubbed his face with his hand.

"Sorry about her, she-"

"No worry," Devina looked at Pippy with a frown on her face and snapped her fingers. In a second an old chair had appeared and scooped Pippy up and had her fall into it with Calliope falling to the ground and looking up and incredibly surprised and scared. She scadered off the floor and ran to the couch and hid behind it.

"How did you," Healy started while looking up at Devina and Devina smiled down at her.

"I borrow a magick chair from Montgomery. It is old, and it has the nature of a dog. I snap and it appears. But it is dumb and it scoops up the first person it sees."

Pippy was so shocked she was stunned and William began laughing uncontrollably. Healy knew her mother would get mad at him later, but even she thought it was hilarious.

"I take you to England today," Devina said while looking down at Healy. "You need to go to Zummary's bank account and also I think there is a shop you must go to."

Healy's dad, after settling down his laugh, looked at Devina while smiling incredibly big. "How, ha, how is Healy going to get her books?"

"I give the to her today. I live in New York, there they schedule what books will be used and I have connections who will give me books she needs early." Devina smiled at Healy and bent down and whispered in her ear: "We will go to England and after we are done we will go to my apartment and I shall teach you the basics you will be needing."

Healy looked at Devina confused, not on the plan but on the transportation.

"How are we going to get from here ta there?"

Devina smiled and pulled Healy to her side with a hand on her shoulder. "We will be back for dinner."

Devina walked with Healy the 5 steps it took to get down the hallway and opened the door.

"We shall take the short cut. Not hold on to my arm tightly."

Healy squeezed Devina's arm with her 2 hands obediently and as they stepped out the door she heard Devina mutter under her breath and in a moment Healy could feel her head begin to spin. Then her arms, legs, her chest and feet until Healy closed her eyes and waited for the dizziness to stop. When it did Healy felt the ground under her feet seem to become heavier and more solid and Devina's voice rang through the background.

"Open your eyes Winkle, we are here."

When Healy opened her eyes she saw a tightly packed alley way that had a whole town squeezed into it with shops and people barely fitting into it with people spilling in and out of multicolored and shaped buildings.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley."

Taking in the sights Healy saw a market place, filled with vegtables and fruits from different countries and ingredients that didn't look like food. She saw a window that kept changing colors with a sign above that spelled "Apocarthy", a book store with books flooding the inside and spilling out into the street, a store that held broom sticks of different shapes and colors with children pressing their noses to the window, and just people walking the streets in different shaped and colored robes that looked like both bathrobes and dresses.

"Why are they wearing those things," Healy said under her breath as a group of people in purple robes went by looking over at a single newspaper and going on about gold and silver. They seemed to talk like stock brokers to Healy.

"Most wizards and witches wear robes here," Devina had a look of pity on her face as they passed. "I no like the fashion. So boring and old. I like Victorian clothes and robes but muggles have the right idea."

"Who?" When Devina said 'muggles' pictures of tiny monsters popped in her head.

"Oh nothing Winkle. I just think people who dress more modern are more fashionable."

"I like old Victorian clothes."

Devina smiled. "Yes, they are nice. But I like wearing jeans better."

Devina walked forward and Healy quickly followed after her while looking around wildly. As Healy ran she quickly looked down and noticed she forgot to bring any shoes with her! Instead of point it out Healy tossed the thought out of her mind and looked quickly at the sky. It was so dark, a half moon floating in a black sea with stars covering the mass od the expansion. It was then that Healy noticed that there were many colorful lights emitting from the windows and a few rainbow lights shinning on old fashioned light poles.

"It's so dark out."

"Well it is night time here. After all, Diagon Alley and England are on the other side of Earth from Roanoke."

"How did we get here?"

"Magick."

"How does nobody know about this place?"

"Magick."

"How is it that all these shops can stay here like this without all falling over?"

"Magick."

Healy smiled up at Devina.

"Is your hair so curly because of magick?"

"No. It is natural." Devina patted Healy's head.

They walked to the end of the road and were right in front of a huge, white ivory building that looked like the Parthanon and White House all in one.

"What is this place?"

"Gringotts," Devina said as the 2 of them walked up the steps and past the columns. "Wizarding bank."

The inside was plated with gold and had high ceilings with chandeliers made of diamonds and crystals that seemed to hand from thin, gold chains. The floor was made of white tile and as Healy walked in she walked past Devina and felt the smoothness under her bare feet. Healy spun several times, the entire hall was like a ballroom that emitted a giggle of different sounds all around. The sounds were measuring's, clings of coins and keys, and a melody of voices coming and going every where.

"I see you like it here," Devina said with a giggle while watching Healy.

"It's like a ball room!"

Devina pointed over at the long line of high benches made of wood and topped with marble and topped with tons of different tools in gold and silver along with coins in every metal and different jewels. "I say, I don't think those are our Princes."

Looking over Healy saw tiny, wrinkled and long eared creatures bent over these desks with feathers and papers and using old scales and items. The sight of them made Healy do a double take and then look away; she had always been taught that staring was rude.

"What, I mean, who are... they?"

"Those are Goblins. They run Gringotts." Devina walked over to the desk and Healy followed. "They are very smart, not particularly nice but very smart."

Thinking it over, one can sometimes assume or understand that being nice and being smart don't _always _go hand in hand together. Healy saw a group of Goblins talking to themselves and a few very tall, maybe just normal sized, people in long robes.

"What are they doing over there," Healy asked Devina as she gestured her head to the direction of the group. She had been taught that pointing was rude.

"Oh, someone broke into the bank."

"Here? But it's... huge! I bet the security here is top notch! Has ta be."

Devina chuckled into her hand and looked down at Healy. "Oh, it is. Almost no one, not even the most powerful wizards, can break into here."

"Almost? Someone's done it before?"

Devina put her finger to her still smiling lips to gesture for Healy to quit talking. Healy did but still looked at the group, it was a mystery how anyone could even get the courage to try and get past the squishy faced Goblins.

Devina and Healy stopped in front of a counter with a Goblin at it.

"I need key to vault 777."

"777," the Goblin gasped at looking at her. "I'm sure you don't have the authority!"

"I do," reaching into her pocket she pulled out a small, silver key with a red bow tied to it.

"For such a small pocket that sure holds a lot of stuff," Healy thought as she watched this happen.

The Goblin took the key and looked at both Devina and Healy.

"Which one of you is a Zummary?"

"None, I am a Kraus and she is Montgomary's heir."

The Goblin bent over and looked at Healy wide eyed through his thin glasses.

"Her?"

"Yes, Healy, introduce yourself."

Devina patted Healy's shoulder and Healy slowly held her hand forward to him to gesture a hand shake. "Nice to meet you."  
The Goblin made a slight sneer and put the silver key in Healy's hand and then turned to the other side.

"Oscar!" The Goblin called loudly and another Goblin came forward with what looked like a tiny train conductor's hat. Healy smiled at this, she liked trains.

"Take these 2 to vault 777."

"Vault 777!?"

"Yes! Vault 777." The Goblin through a gold key the size of Healy's fist at Oscar and he easily caught it.

"Right this way ladies," Oscar said while leading them over to a large, wooden door. "Sorry about all the commotion here, with the break in and all; plus no one expected anyone to go to vault 777 for, well, years to come."

"How come," Healy asked while following him. Oscar just shoved his shoulders and opened the door and gestured for the 2 of them to go in.

"You'll see."

The 3 entered the hall and Healy noticed it was as narrow and tall as mine shaft. To Healy that fit well, she thought gnomes were the perfect size to be miners. It was so pitch black that the light emanating from the torch hanging on the wall was bounced off the walls as well as Devina and Healy's skin. The smell was of rust and coal but the air was dry without a hint of humidity, it was almost hot inside the place. Oscar took a torch that hung on the wall and ushered the girls to a mining cart that opened up like a car door and even had seats. Devina and Healy sat side by side and Healy leaned around looking from side to side.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you, girlie," Oscar said as he situated himself. "You'll scrape your nose right off."

Healy sat back down and twisted her head from side to side and in the next minute the 2 of them rocketed off at a speed a bullet couldn't keep up with. It was like a roller-coaster, Healy loved roller-coasters. Both Healy and Devina were smiling wildly and their chests were pushed back at the speed. The temperature changed at every turn from cold, room temperature, to fire hot at a seconds notice. At one point Healy saw a reflection of what looked to be fire on the wall and smoke emitting from the same place.

"Are there dragons in here," Healy shouted over the wind to Devina. The thought of Dragons excited her more than scared her.

"Perhaps," Devina shouted at. "If there are, I don't particularly want to find them!"

"I do!"

Healy could hear the high pitched laugh of Devina echo off the walls that lead to an exilerating feeling of sound and wind rushing past them. In another minute the cart stopped in front of a tall door with a torch on each side of the door.

"Vault 777," Oscar shouted as he got out and opened the door for the girls to get out. After Devina got up and out Healy stood up to find that her legs shook wildly while straight and couldn't keep Healy straight up either. Losing her balance Healy fell forward and Devina caught her as she fell to keep her from hitting the ground.

"Woah," Healy said and then looked up at Devina while smiling wildly. "Let's do that again!"

Devina laughed at this and then gestured Oscar to open the vault. Oscar slid the gold key into a tall key hole and after a turn the hinges squealed open causing Healy to cover her ears. Once it was opened though the entire cavern was filled with a rainbow of lights so extraordinary Healy could only think they came from a rave. Stacked inside the vault were mountains of gold and silver coins, jewels of all shapes and colors, necklaces of pearls and diamonds, rings as big as fists, tiaras meant for Queens, and full suits of armor from every country and for every sex. But that was not all that filled the vault; there were oil paintings, cars, rugs, clothes, cups, china, maps, books, and other amazing items that could belong to a museum.

"Go on," Devina said as she bent down to Healys ear and places a bright purple string pouch in her hand. "Fill it up with gold, silver and bronze."

With a few light steps Healy stepped into the vault with her mind spinning. "Thing can't be right" ran through her mind once she was in the vault and she had to turn her head to see Devina smiling and encouraging her to go on. Being encouraged and filled with enjoyment Healy dived over to a medium sized pile and shoveled in gold and silver and had to hunt for any bronze as it seemed there was a total lack of it. Once the bag was full she ran over to Devina and looked up for help.

"Are you sure I can have all of this?" The question was very important as Healy had never held this much money before, or even thought she could hold this much money before.

"Of course you can dear. This is your vault."

The 2 left the vault and took the roller-coaster ride back up and out of the tunnels. The entire time Healy looked down at the bag while estimating how much was probably in it. More than that was in her piggy back was all she could really estimate it too at the moment. Once the walked out of Gringots Healy was bubbling with questions and letting them run amuck as they walked the still crowded street of Diagon Alley.

"How do I have that much," Healy asked with emphasis on her surprise. "I mean, my parents don't have any ties here and I know my account at home defenatly doesn't have even close to that much."

"I told you, my dear, it is all Montgomery's."

"How does he have that much? Fer a man who isn't anywhere you'd think he has a really important job!"

Devina chuckled her deep chuckle into her hand and looked down at Healy through icy blue eyes. What she said next was very matter o' factly.

"You see, all of that was stolen."

"Stolen!?"

"Yes, stolen."

"But, why wasn't any of it returned to the owners? Why is it all his still?"

"Because they cannot prove it. Montgomery is a smart man; he knows how to get it, hide it, and have reasonable proof that it is all his. Not enough to be innocent but enough for him to keep it all."

That was even more confusing. Thinking in any legal terms, the few she knew from watching cop and lawyer dramas on TV, Healy could swear that there was no way anyone would be allowed to touch that stuff if someone was in prison. So that lead her to wonder about who this man was. She turned to Devina for more answers.

"So… why is it all mine now? I've never met the guy and we aren't related by blood; it has to be illegal."

"No, he gives it to you. For you. So it is all yours' now."

"What!? Why?"

"He likes you."

"We've never met before though! How can he like me and just give all of that to me?"

Devina smirked at this and continued walking ahead. "There are things you do not know yet child. Things I do not know yet either."

Healy was more than a little disturbed at this situation, always being a little weary at accepting presents and money unless she earned them coming into a Smithsonian amount of treasure is more than a little too much at once. Reflecting on her family finances Healy felt even more insecure about her parents, here they were working so hard for a living and her sister and herself and now Healy was the owner of a grand fortune.  
The walk down the street was still very crowded as Healy followed Devina closely so as not to lose track of her.

"Where are we goin now?"

Devina smiled back at her and then looked forward.

"You need a wand. I get you a wand. The place we go now is known for having the best wands in the world for a person. Since we are here, I get you the best wand."

Healy followed closely behind Devina for about 5 minutes until Devina stopped abruptly and Healy had to steady herself so she didn't run into her.

"Here we are."

"Where's here again?"

"Olivanders. The wand store."

The wand shop was a small building that was situated in between several larger buildings, it was a wooden building with a small window beside the door that showed the name "Olivander's" on it with a black back ground. The door swung open and Healy then knew why you couldn't see behind the window, shelves upon shelves and bookcases towering above on another like tightly squeezed mountains were endlessly pushed in rows in the now tiny sized looking room. Each shelve of each bookcase had an overflowing amount of small boxes that were nearly on the verge of pouring out of the very shelves and on to the small, narrow path meant to be a hallway. As the two ladies stepped in a small bell rang twice as each of them entered and suddenly a tall man dressed in a long black robe with what looked like a high collared shirt stepped out from behind a stampede of shelves. He was an elderly man with thin glasses and white hair pulled behind his ears and kept in place with a tall, pointed black hat; he had a friendly smile and held a small bow in his right hand.

"Welcome," the man said excitedly and breathlessly as he quickly made his way to the two ladies, masterfully dodging any obstacles in his path. "Welcome to my shop, young lady! I suppose you're here to get a new wand. Broke your old one? Not working just right? Feel like an upgrade?"  
The man quickly drew Devina's left hand and held it up in the air as if he was examining it. Devina chuckled with her deep voice in to her right hand and slowly and gently pulled her hand away and back to her side.

"No no," Devina replied as she took out a short stick from her back pocket. The stick was no more than 7 inches, a light tan color and very thin; it was almost as if it could break with a strong wind. "My wand is good. No, I bring her here for a wand."

Devina pushed Healy up with a hand on her back and with a light push Healy took a step forward and looked up at the man. The man smiled and kneeled on one leg to look up at Healy at eye level while taking each of her hands in to one of his.

"Long fingers and small hands, perfect for artists or musicians. How old are you sweet heart?"

The man talked like a grandfather to Healy and he reminded her of some of the people she cleans for. But it was still a bit nerve rattling to have someone hold her hands like a pet and be spoken to like a child.

"I just turned 12 today," Healy said while looking up at the man.

The man's eyes went wide for a second and then he shook his head and smiled again while nodding.  
"You just look so young. Now then, which hand do you write with?"

"My right."

At that second he flipped a wand from his pocket, twirled it, and ten different rulers and measuring tapes came out of nowhere. He set Healy's hands down and walked over to a shelf while the measures measured Healy's arm, hand, each finger, her wrist (around and length) and even her feet! Once they had left the man looked at a sheet of paper and came back with 3 small boxes in his hands.

"I think one of these will be perfect for you, now once I hand it to you I just want you to give it a little swish. Here, this one: Dragon's heart string and fir, 8 and a half inches and straight as an arrow!"

Healy took this into her right hand and with a quick turn, no more than an inch, the wand sharply left out of her hand with what could have been a scream and pinned itself to the nearby bookcase like a dart pinned to the wall.

"No no," he said while he opened another box and handed Healy another wand. "This one might work better: Phoenix feather and fig, 9 and a half inches and bendy."

Once situated Healy swished the wand quickly upwards and it rocketed out of her hand right into the celling. After a few pieces of ceiling board fell down Olivander put back the 3rd box and returned with 2 new ones.

"Perhaps I've been going about this all wrong; the wands must be too short for you. A nice long one for a girl so short is no surprise! Here we are: Phoenix feather and willow,10 inches and bendy!"

Once settled in her hand Healy gave the wand a flick and it made all of the boxes on the other cabinet jump out. Mr. Olivander gently took the wand from Healy.

"No… I'm afraid not. Long is good but not this type… Let's try this: Unicorn hair and Walnut, 11 inches and twisty."  
With barely a swish the wand sent smoke all over the room. Devina had to open the door just to see the 2 standing and coughing.

"No, no. Certainly not…"

"Perhaps," Devina said as she stepped forward. She looked strangely disappointed. "I was wrong about coming here. Maybe she needs a wand from different shop, one made newer and with different materials."

"Oh no, no, no Madame," Mr. Olivander screeched as he flicked his wand at the stands and began putting wands up and taking down the one's pinned to the walls. "The wand she needs is certainly here! It just takes some looking; every wand is different and must choose its own wielder."

As Mr. Olivander spoke Healy wandered off to the corners of the store, mostly to escape the smoke as she was just done coughing and was now looking at the numbers of boxes. She saw that in a distant corner the room was a bit darker and upon further inspection the boxes were of different design and had more than a few years' worth of dust gathered on top of them. Healy wandered down the enclosed space when she saw what looked like a long hiking staff leaning against a chair. It was long and lean with some very slight bends and had what looked like a very elegant vine twisted around its body from the top down. A box sat on the chair that the staff rested on and once Healy picked it up and dusted it off she saw it had words on it that she couldn't quite make out in the lighting. Healy let her fingers glide across the staff to feel its silky smoothness which tempted her to hold it in her hand and bring it to her side. It was more than a foot taller than her and smelt like old lamp oil and library dust. In an instant what appeared to be a purple light admitted from the staff and it shrank into Healy's hand perfectly!

"Healy," Devina's voice appeared around the corner just as her hand settled upon Healy's shoulder in the next minute. "We saw a light, what is it that you are doing?"

Healy looked back between the now shrunken staff and Devina hoping to explain when she walked her over to Mr. Olivander.

"What have you got there," Mr. Olivander questioned and then he took the box Healy held in her other hand. His eyes went wide and a smile crept on to his face as he exhaled. "Ah an old one we have here. Made by my great grandmother, a woman with many secretes! We never quite knew where this one came from, and neither did she! Unicorn hair and oak, 14 inches and surprisingly swishy. No one's used this little one before since it was made, no one could handle it."

"Well," Devina said with a sly smile as she looked down at Healy. "Give it a try."

Healy carefully raised the wand and swished to her side, in all truthfulness she was afraid to break it or damage the thing. In the next second a bell sound came out and what looked like a tiny silver bird flew out of the wand and around the store until landing on top of the wand. Healy stared at it until it turned around, stared right back and made a bell sound and disappeared. In the next second both Devina and Mr. Olivader were clapping their hands.

"Bravada," Devina shouted as she clapped.

"That is the first time I've seen this wand make anything," Mr. Olivander said excitedly as he finished up his clapping. "And quite an extraordinary thing! Ah yes, this little wand will be perfect for the more spiritual side of magick. I'd stay away from the Dark Arts with it though and look more closely at herbology and charms with it."

"We shall take it," Devina exclaimed while handing Healy the box. Once it was in her hands Healy looked down and read the inscription to herself.

"Secrete Seeker."

After a ring up Healy paid 13 pieces of gold for the wand and they left with Healy staring at it intently.

"Oh," Devina shouted that made Healy jump.

"What's up?" Healy had taken her eyes off of the wand and looked up at Devina.

"I almost forgot!"

"What?"

Devina stuck her hand into her pocket and jumbled through it as if it was filled to the peek with nicknacks and then came out with a wide box and handed it to Healy. "Open it!"

Taking it in her hands Healy opened the box and picked up a mirror the size of her palm. It was shaped in a circle and had a silver back on it with a crest on it of 2 peacock-like birds framing a lion with the saying "Sapiens Dominabitur Astris". It had a chain attached to the top of it that was a shining gold. Devina took the chain and pulled the chain and mirror over her neck and let it fall.

"Happy Birthday Healy."

Yes, it certainly is.


	3. A ride to new beginnings

Healy passed 6th grade in June of that same year, although her grades were much different at the end of the year than from the beginning. Before Healy scored A's and B's easily but now it seemed she struggled just to keep a float with mostly D's and C's; even in her music class Healy seemed to struggle with just practicing the easiest of pieces. But it was her demeanor that had drastically changed and scared most students.

Before Healy slouched over, didn't smile much, had her nose in a book and didn't talk to many people. Now Healy was seen with a smile almost every minute, she stood up straight and always seemed to have a look that was as if she were staring out a window. Healy's own clothes had changed as well. Abandoning the old black jacket Healy appeared wearing new shirts, skirts and jeans as well as jewelry and hats that looked foreign in every /Devina had given her everything. Almost once a week Healy would come home with a pile of clothes and a new box of jewelry that used to be Devina's and what she had given Healy. Devina had changed her style very often and, being a pack rat, hoarded all of her clothes refusing to sell or throw them away as she would rather give them to a friend. Healy had no real style or interest in clothes and took Devina's clothes as a way to change herself. And a change they were. Devina loved to dote on Healy so dressing her up was not only a form of doting but too much fun for her to pass up. Soon Healy began feeling like a life size Barbie doll for Devina and that all the clothes were becoming a bit much; but when you have such a pushy person like Devina who won't take 'no' for an answer, you begin to accept the and you don't know if she understands the english word for 'no', given that she never seems to agree with it and always does as she /Healy was tired of always being sad and confused and wanted more excitement in her daily routine; dressing up in Devina's clothes was a start in Healy finding something new that she liked. Her mother didn't approve of this.

As Healy left and came back home she would yell at her on how she looked so unusual and how Devina was a bad influence on her. Healy would yell back that Devina was a great teacher and stylist and she would rather learn how to dress from Devina than her mother. We can also see that her relationship with her mother had not improved... A very sad development given that they were so close when she was little, even during work the 2 of them were fairly /Devina had become Healy's tutor; after school on Fridays Healy would come home and meet Devina where for the rest of the weekend the 2 would be in Devina's apartment in Manhattan, New York. Healy often commented on how funny it was that Devina, a German born and raised girl, had come to America and, somehow, became the magickal ambassador for both Germany and America. There, in New York, Devina tested and drilled Healy endlessly on every lesson Hogwarts had and was still covering. This went from Potions to Transfiguration to Charms to History of Magick to Defense Against the Dark Arts and even to how to look into crystal balls. Devina was preparing Healy for her next year at Hogwarts and Healy was just astounded at what she could do. Remember: Healy had never thought she could ever be able to actually use magic.

Her entire life up until that pint was disguising her interest and embarrassing hobby as either studying or flipping boredly through a book with her eyes glued to the page. She also learned a basic and annoying fact: casting spells is hard. Much harder than it looks, but that never stopped her or dulled Haly's ambition. Just using her wand was incredibly simple but incantations and proper motions were things Healy was the most excited about. The fact that she was constantly studying her magick textbooks was the reason she was neglecting her school homework. In a way she prioritized her magic studying and advancement over her ordinary schoolwork; something that aggravated her parents to no avail. In her room upstairs her parents could often find her in her room studying one of the huge leather bound text books and flipping and flicking her wand at objects to cast one of her favorite spells.

"WI-nd GA-ur-dian Levi-O-sa!" After a quick twist of the wrist and a bright flash of light the clothes on the floor stood up one by one as Healy directed them into either her dresser or into the closet. This was also the same way she would create her outfits. Her father found this both amusing and distracting while her mother thought it was a bad habit and potentially dangerous. br /During this time Healy was more and more separate from her mother and sister, a fate that Healy didn't mind but she was distressed that her and her father didn't get to talk much. Healy's father always came home after working a long time as a construction worker and was always tired as Healy was always studying up stairs with either her magick or with doing make up work for class. When they did get to talk it was right before Healy went to bed and it would be a conversation of how Will wanted Healy to study regular, non-magick, skills and techniques.

"You just don't want to run head straight into this magick thing," Will would say with a sigh as he rubbed his face with both of his hands. In general Will was the most stressed and fearful of Healy actually leaving and also worried more and more about her future as he always did, but even more he was having a hard time comprehending the idea of magick. He often identified Devina as living in the Magick world and Healy in the Real world. "Even if you do stay in the magick business you'll want to be able to have a skill here in the real world so you won't just have all your cards in one deck."

Healy did agree with her father because it was logical but she didn't like it because it made her feel as if he didn't support her. Not only that, but when he made a distinction between the 'Magick' world and the 'Real' world it almost seemed as if he didn't believe Healy had any part of either magic or life with her family. Even more, Healy thought that if she knew magick she could do any job in the real world and make it on her own just fine. It was Healy's mother, though, that had the true problem with Healy using /When Healy went with her mother to clean the rooms of the elderly tenants, now twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Healy was ordered to keep her wand in its box and not to use any magick in the rooms. Healy often pleaded on how much easier it would be to use magick and how much faster she could do her job but Suzzan held her grip on the rule.

"This place is and shall be magick free," Suzzan would often chant under her breath at her desk while filing papers and going through computer files. "Gypsy magick or hocus pocus like that will not happen here. Just think of what the guests would think!" Suzzan often referred to the tenants as "guests" like at a hotel.

Calliope, however, seemed both intrigued and afraid of Healy now. She would often look through Healy's clothes and books but once Healy brought out her wand Calliope ran out of whatever room they were in and refused to be near her. Healy enjoyed this new found freedom from her sister and took advantage of this by staying in their room and practicing and studying for as long as she wanted. Now Healy could go to bed without Calliope bothering her with staying up with the lights and TV on and she could have a nice, quiet room to just hang out in. But Healy always lounged to be in New York with Devina. Devina had become both a best friend and a mother figure to Healy as she was incredibly fun and nice. Healy had also fallen in love with New York city and both her and Devina found excuses to explore the city night and day with either magickal people or by themselves. Devina preferred to go out with Healy and not with other.

"Other wizards are no fun," she would say when Healy asked why she didn't hang out with her magickal friends. "They are too obsessed with blood status and many of them won't live with nonmagickal people even though they are everywhere and so much fun.

"Who cares if you're magickal or not? If you're a good person and respect others it shouldn't matter!" This was Healy's opinion on it all and Devina always supported it. Devina also encouraged Healy to read nonmagickal books like her father. Even though the encouragement was nice and left Healy feeling spoiled with attention she often felt as if no one believed in her, as if everyone expected her to fail.

"There is another world out there and you can be a part of both," Devina would smile at this and have a look of hope in her eyes. "You are so very lucky to have these 2 worlds and you should take full advantage of them."

And Healy did. Healy studied books from both worlds and painted and played music, her aunt moved to Spain and sent her and her sister a guitar to share, like any regular person but she so wanted to be around other wizards. Healy had actually never met another wizard, the only ones she had seen or met was through Devina, and even then she was treated like a cute little kid and not a potential Witch. In Healy's mind she was missing out on adventures and opportunities every minute she wasn't with Devina and day dreamed constantly of what it would be like to do magick like a real wizard. In the few months Healy was with Devina Healy had become bolder, her dreams bigger and was constantly now looking for a new adventure every minute. Healy no longer just wanted to sit still and read all day but wanted to go out, run around and climb tall mountains as well as swim great bodies of water. Devina had helped Healy open up to the world so that she could experience everything she ever dreamed of and gave Healy the courage to actually pursue her dreams. Healy was just now counting the days until September 1st when school actually began and the closer the date crawled over to the more Healy imagined on how she would actually get to

-September 1st-

"Are you SURE you have everything you need," Will drilled his daughter as he, Suzzan, and Calliope sat in the living room in the early evening waiting for Devina. Healy was sitting on 3 very big cases that Devina called "trunks" and had belonged to Devina until she bought new ones last year. One was a bright pink with many pockets that Healy was using to hold all her books and was planning to put her school materials in, another was a baby blue that held all of the clothes and jewelry Devina had given her along with a tradition black hat and robe for school, and a small brown suitcase that Healy was going to use to travel on the train with. Healy was sitting on the baby blue trunk with her guitar leaned against it; the guitar had been Healy's since Calliope was given a PSP a month later and had no interest left for the guitar (surprising given that she would fight Healy tooth and nail over it whenever she played with it).

"I'm sure dad," Healy said more annoyed than exhausted. Healy was so excited that she hardly got any sleep that night and spent most of it packing and repacking and checking to see if she missed anything. At the moment, any item that Healy had any claims to was packed in one of the three boxes that was destined to Hogwarts. In Healy's mind it was like packing up everything that ever made Healy Healy. All Healy had that wasn't packed what she was wearing: a purple string strapped shirt, long black skirt that was puffy in ring-like parts, gold bangle covering each arm, dangly earing with an emerald in each, a pair of brown heals that showed her toes, and a hair band that pulled her hair in a ponytail. The jewelry was very embarrassing to Healy but she wanted to wear something nice and the idea of wearing Devina's old shiny things made Healy smile. To Healy, she looked like an old traveling gypsy that told fortunes and read tarot cards.

"Just how are you going to get there," Pippy grumbled under her breath as she took another drink of coffee while tapping her feet to the ground and looking over at the door, daring someone to come through it without her consent.

"Devina said we'll first go to New York and then we'll get to some train station in England.

"Which train station," Will quickly asked obviously worried if it was safe for the 2 girls.

"King's Cross."

"We have trains here, at home," Pippy said as she looked out the window. The town Healy lived in was originally a train town but now only had a few trains running here and there. It was hardly a train station and more like a battered old museum.

"We'll this one is supposed to be the only one that goes to Hogwarts." Healy said aggregated as she turned her head away from her mother. The 2 often didn't get along anymore and would simply ignore each other now-a-days. "It's not like any coal train here can run over and across the Atlantic Ocean just for me. Besides, Devina's just gonna take me there, watch me get on the train and then she'll call you guys to-"

"So she's leaving you there!" Pippy yelled in a high pitched tone as if she had knew all along something like that would happen. She had yelled so loud Calliope had jerked her head up from her snooze and Will almost dropped his glass of water.

"It's a student train! Parents and guardians don't ride with us! It's a rule!"

"Then how do we know you're gonna be safe? How do we know she's not gonna just take you somewhere and-"

"Suzzan, calm down already." Will said with authority to Pippy. "Just trust her, she's been good to Healy and she hasn't done anything suspicious at all."

William and Devina had become friends during the summer and Devina always made sure to check Will before doing anything with Healy. Will knew that Devina was very honest and wouldn't try anything because him, Devina and Healy were all so close.

"Trust her," Pippy bellowed as she set down her coffee cup. "She's nothing but a… a…"

Pippy was stopped short of her conversation as Devina had just walked out of the open walk way connecting the kitchen to the living room and walked behind Healy. Another great thing about Devina: she seemed to appear out of no where very quietly and cat like. Healy looked up at Devina as she stopped and noticed her bottom lip was pulled in at a corner of her mouth and both her hands were on her hips. Yep, she's mad.

"I am a what now, Ms?" Devina said in a deeper voice than usual and glared slightly at Pippy.

Pippy soon looked away behind her through the screen door that was on the side of the living room out at the patio where Healy had planted many plants in the side garden and Calliope's bike sat used. Healy smiled as she knew Pippy was incredibly afraid of Devina and whenever Devina was addressed by name she went ballistic unless she was actually there. Will stood up and shook Devina's hand and offered her some coffee which Devina declined.

The 2 of them discussed the traveling plans as Healy lugged the trunks one by one to the door, put one shoes (Healy now always checked and made sure she wore shoes since her trip to Diagon Alley went barefoot) and continued to bounce in place as Will and Devina talked. Healy was more than just excited for this day and thought that if the stars hit the sky before she left they were going to be late and she wouldn't be able to get into Hogwarts. After every sentence, laugh and gesture Healy glared hard for the 2 of them to finish so they could leave; she didn't want to be in here and then New York for too long. Devina noticed the electric stare Healy was giving them and smiled.

"I think our little Winkler will explode if we do not hurry," Devina teased as she pet Healy's head and gave a firm hand shake to Will. "I will send letters and give calls and everything so that you may know Healy is doing fine."

"Thank you," Will said and then looked down at his daughter. This was the first time Healy had genuinely seen her father sad and felt a rush of cold wind blow through her heart as he looked upon her. "I'm gonna miss you Shorty."

Healy stepped forward and gave her dad a tight hug; she could feel her father's strong arms encompass her shoulders like a soldier carrying a wounded child. In Healy's mind that was what her father was: a strong soldier always there to protect her. Stifling a cry Healy smiled and looked up at her dad, someone who she knew believed in her no matter what.

"I'll miss you too daddy."

Healy looked over at her mother and sister. Calliope was now standing back against the dresser in the living room and Pippy was still sitting in her chair looking away from them the whole

"I'll miss you too mom."

Pippy quickly looked over at Healy and nodded in her direction and then returned her attention back out the window. Healy couldn't tell whether this meant anything or not but supposed it was a good bye. Devina took Healy's shoulder and Healy stepped back, away from her dad, and gave the family a final wave and said a final "good bye" before turning away and taking her guitar, small suit case, and the pink trunk and following Devina out the door. Devina put a hand on the pink trunk and she pulled the blue trunk and the two of them walked out of the house and soon emerged in Devina's messy-yet-somehow-nice apartment.

"So what now," Healy said as she set down her things and excitedly bounced on her toes.

"Now we have breakfast. And then, we catch bus and get off at King's Cross."

"Wait, what? Breakfast? But… I had dinner an hour ago." Healy looked up at Devina in both confusion and disbelief. Then Healy relized the time difference: Hogwarts was in England and there was a fairly big time difference separating two countries across an ocean. "Is there a bus that runs from here ta England that I don't know about?"

Devina chuckled as she let go of the trunk and walked over to the kitchen in her apartment. Devina's apartment was smaller than Healy's as it had one living room with a walk in kitchen, a tiny enclosed work area use for Healy's bedroom, a bathroom, and one main bed room. All of the apartment had many pictures of bands from Europe and America and the furniture was worn and old, much of which came from Germany and a few which were gifts from the Zummarys. Devina's apartment was, to Healy, strewn with things that belonged in a much bigger, older version of what's she's living in now but the image of antiques strewn around messily yet thoughtfully did seem to suit Devina's image.

"No, no, no. There is no such bus."

"Then how are we getting there?"

"Magick."

Healy stepped into the kitchen and watched Devina work.

"And are you gonna use magick to make breakfast?"

"No."

Devina smiled. Healy asking when Devina used magick or not was like a game and both of them enjoyed it. Healy help Devina make French toast and after breakfast Devina put healy's text books into her blue trunk. Healy eyed the set of books all written by a man named "Greggory Lockhart" and shrugged thinking that they must be a part of some magickal literature class; after all, from what she read out of them they seemed far fetched and boring enough. The two carried Healy's trunks, to Healy's protest that they could just connect Devina's front door the front door of the apartment building, down 4 flights of stairs and out of the building where they walked five blocks until they came to an empty parking lot. Why Devina didn't make it easy on them she didn't know or ask. The 2 of them situated themselves in the middle of the lot and sat on the trunks waiting for an unnamed escort to take them to England. In this point of time Healy realized something: This is really confusing and I have no idea what's going on.

"What are we waiting for?" Healy finally asked as she soon gave up imagining what they were now waiting for. Healy had imagined a dragon, unicorn, flying carpet, and soon even a group of 10 wizards in black suits with head pieces and tricked out brooms like some sort of super secrete conspiracy agency that made sure all magic related things were kept secrete from the public.

At that moment an old, beaten up yellow school bus rolled into the parking lot. Even by school bus standards the bus was a wreck as the yellow was faded to a dull mellow color, patches of dirt covered the bus and even the letters to, what could have been, Liberty High School were faded and now missing the H's, I and B. Healy looked at the bus and then back at Devina in horror. With her pointer finger on her left pointed at the bus Healy looked at Devina with her mouth dropped open and a look of horror on her face.

"Is that..." Healy didn't even finish her sentence due to shock at the sight of it. Devina laughed to the point lines crossed her eyes and she nodded and took the trunk she was sitting on over to the bus where she pulled it on, got in, and beckoned Healy to do the same.

"I'm gonna die on that thing," Healy said as she got up and dragged her trunk behind her being careful not to let it hit the bottom of her guitar. After a minute of pushing the trunk up Healy sat the trunk down and the rest of her things next to the other and looked at the driver. He was a man in his late 20's- early 30's with dark skin, and long dread locks that looked to be coming out of a large beanie hat that situated itself on the top of his head. He was wearing sun glasses with 2 different shades in them and Bermuda shorts along with a polo shirt that had a name tag that said "Hi! I'm Brain!". Healy looked at the man and when he looked at her he gave her a wide toothy grin and friendly spirit.

"Nice to meet you kid," Brian said with a relaxed drone and childish tone of voice. He seemed to have the attitude of a guy who takes life calmly and like to surf on his time off. Healy brought out her hand for him to shake which he took firmly. This must look very strange: a small girl shaking an older-surfer dude's hand very business like.

"Nice to meet you too, Brian." Healy smiled while saying this; she always liked people who seemed mellow and just happy to be alive. That and she like surfers and people with dread locks too.

Devina took Healy's shoulder and the 2 sat in the booth 2 booths away from the driver's side and looked over at Brian.

"Where to ladies," Brain yelled over as he turned on the radio. To Healy's disappointment it was neither Reggae or the Greatfull Dead but AC-DC; although Healy didn't mind that at. It just didn't add to the experience that she imagined... that and AC-DC is British and that was just too well though out.

"We go to King's Cross in London, England," Devina said over the music. Devina liked music, in fact she loved anything that was associated with punk, metal or rock and roll, but she hated having to talk over it.

"King's Cross," Brian said while turning down the music and looking back at the 2 girls by turning in his seat. "Is the little girlie there going to Hogwarts?"

Healy blushed a little and covered her mouth with her hand, a position she does whenever she was embarrassed. But in this way she was just hiding a smiled before looking up and nodding to.

"Yeah."

"Which year are you," Brain said now very interested. Healy looked at Devina as she had been telling everyone she was going to 7th grade next year but didn't know what to say to that.

"She will be second year," Devina said while petting Healy's head. "Now we go now or we will be very late."

Brain nodded while smiling and turned around into his chair somehow feeling much more excited than before. He stretched his beanie slightly more over his dread locks and turned up the music while opening the glove compartment and pulling out a long stick that Healy recognized as a wand.

"Keep up girlies," Brain said as he flicked the wand over the dash board and a stream of blue sparks fell over the dash board. "About an hour away till we get there."

Once the bus started moving Healy instantly felt a different kind of kick and direction from the ground than what happened in her mom's car or any other bus she'd been on. Healy always knew driving a car or riding in one felt much different, almost like flying, than walking but this wasn't like driving. It felt like you were standing still while a tornado passed through you and left without leaving a mark on you. Healy looked out the window and saw that instead of passing Time's Square and Central Park they had dashed from the Brooklyn Bridge to a sign that said "Welcome to Massachusetts". Healy looked up at Devina with eyes bugging and mouth open a bit and hanging

"How are we doing this?" Healy noticed her very words seemed to roll away from her as she said them. As if they too were said somewhere else and Healy forgot to pick them up as she left them behind.

"Magick."

The ride did last an hour and Healy was amazed every second of the minute and they passed mountains, glaciers, to even parts where Healy swore there was no land under the tires. At one point Healy watched a group of Humpback whales dive up and out of the ocean as they passed them in a sort of frame by frame motion. Healy thought back on how Devina would connect the doors in Healy's house to Devina's apartment and realized that the bus was doing something just like that. It was like it would appear in one state of time, one frame of a picture, and then exit into another. Once Healy was sure the bus was on dry land again she saw the scenery was changing constantly. At one point the people wore bright clothes and tank tops and at another they were wearing long fur coats and hats covering half their faces. Soon the bus landed in a busy street in front of a huge building with people going in and out of it. Many of which were dressed professionally or at least presentable.

"King's Cross girlies," Brian said with a laugh and leaning back in his chair. During the entire trip it only looked like he was driving during a turn which barely happened. The outside was like a huge brick library that stood erect on such a cloudy day. Healy noticed stray groups of people with children and teenagers lugging trunks going into the same direction, some stopping to exchange 'hellos' and quick small talk.

"Are those students from Hogwarts," Healy asked Devina while pointing out window, not taking her eyes off them. It was her first time being in a foreign country and seeing foreign people, especially foreign wizards her age. The thought of other kids like her practicing magic was too much not adore and amaze her.

"Yes they are, Winkler. Now come on, we must go."

Devina and Healy pushed the trunks outside while Devina handed 10 pieces of gold coins called "Galleons" to Brian. Brian waved to them and said "good luck" once they were off the bus with their things and he took off. To Healy the bus was here until the end of the block and then it just disappeared. Devina told Healy to wait there for a moment and left and when she came back 5 minutes later she was pushing what looked like a tall manual lift for big boxes used at grocery stores.

"We use this to carry trunks."

"Brilliant!" Healy said this with a fake French accent (one she picked up from watch Genius beer commercials) as the loaded it up with the trunks and Healy pushed it while her guitar was slung across her back and the suitcase on top of the trunks. Inside King's Cross the entire celling seemed to be made up of multiple railings that encompassed the building and tall brick columns that had numbers on them to show which train was coming there.

"Which train do I get on," Healy said while turning her head sideways everywhere in an attempt to randomly know where she was going and figure out who everyone was. Devina pulled out an envelope from her pocket (Healy learned that Devina had actually enchanted all the pockets in her jeans to be multidimensional for her things) and opened it up and handed Healy a golden ticket. On it said "Hogwarts Express, platform 9 and ¾". Healy made an awkward expression at the ticket but shrugged and looked around. She saw the 9 and 10 platforms but as she looked around not a single 3/4, she didn't see even a ½ next to any of the

"Ummm, are we in the right place? I doubt there's any fractions of a platform here."

Devina smiled and pulled Healy over where they walked over to the nine sign and walked past 2 columns and Devina Pointed at the farthest brick column (3rd one next to platform 10).

"There. That is the portal."

"The portal to what?"

"To the train. Your train. You see, we hide the port from nonmagickal people so they no see you go to Hogwarts."

"Oooookay." Healy had learned never to doubt Devina, no matter how outlandish what ever she said sounds. " So how do I go to there?"

"You run through the column."

Now that's just too outlandish, even for her. Healy stared at Devina with a blank look.

"What?"

"You run through!"

Healy smiled a bit and looked at Devina curiously. "Okay, maybe I'm not the brightest bulb in the shack but I know that that column is a solid. And it's a lot more solid than me. And if I run through it I will be a broken solid."

Devina laughed and petted Healy's head. "No Winkler, that portal is not solid right now. Now it is easy for you to go through because we have opened it, and in a little while it will close."

"Wait, so it's sort of like a trans-dimensional sort of port. Like what you do with doors or with your jean pockets?"

Smiling and nodding Devina pointed to a group of people come by and pointed to them and whispered "watch". Healy watched and saw as slowly one of each of the people seemed to either slide or disappear into the column in under a second. Healy looked up at Devina and she cupped Healy's face in her 2, long and ring cluttered hands.

"You have fun now. You do your best. I know you are very smart and very strong and I am sure you will have much fun."

Healy smiled when Devina let go of her face and stepped back, separating the 2 of them in a space much too far apart to show how close they are.

"I will, and thank you Devina. You've done much, much more than anyone has ever done for me in my whole life."

"Winkler, do not say that now. Your life has just begun. Keep your eyes open and watch and take the opportunities that you are given. They do not come very often."

With that Devina turned away and walked away from Healy. Healy watched her go and looked at the column in distress. She knew she could go through it but she was afraid of causing a huge spectacle once she did as the idea of running through it and then disappear a moment later; that would cause a huge commotion. As Healy thought of what to do Healy heard a high shrill echo through the station. Turning back she saw Devina, who was very far away, was screaming with all the eyes of everyone on her.

"My baby," she screamed franticly. "My baby!"

The commotion was so loud many police officers came over to her and Healy realized this was her chance to make it through the portal without being seen. Bracing the handles of the cart Healy walked 2 steps and then charged into a run to the column and to her disbelief Healy slid through it as if she was passing a door closed off by a plastic sheet. Such a weird feeling, like sliding through a narrow alley way with walls made out of pudding. Healy only ran a few steps more and then began to slowly stop, breathing a little heavy her legs stopped as a completely different level and tone of noise filled the air and smells so different assaulted her that she perked her head up imedeintly. Her eyes were almost in a state of shock at how different everything looked, how wonderful everything seemed.

The station had been opened up to an open ground sort of rail way where a huge, bright red train was stationed over at the tracts and bright, cloud white steam came out of the black towers. The sky was a bright, light blue and the steam intermingled with the clouds and the entire station just had the late summer day filling itself to the brim. On the side of the train Healy saw the name, printed in gold, Hogwarts Express over the train and many compartments with many windows with many children waving and shouting out of them on it as well. The children were of all different types and ages and had other people going up to them, handing them things and shaking their hands and some kissing their faces. Around her where groups of people laughing, crying and even dancing around with one or more children also pushing carts like Healy's. Healy began to walk, slowly and in an enchanted manner as she looked around, in between these people as she made her way to the door to the train. Everyone was talking to everyone and Healy could feel her heart swirling around as she took in the sights and sounds of what was going on. Healy seemed to get by fairly unnoticed and made it to the entrance of the train where a man in a blue suit pulled out his hand and asked for a ticket. It took Healy a few seconds to remember she had put the ticket in her pocket and pulled it out for the man to take and look at it. He asked her if she wanted to keep it and Healy nodded wildly making the man smile as he gave it to her and directed her down the hallway with different compartments.

Healy pushed all her things into the narrow hallway, with slight difficulty and her guitar was in the way a bit and she was constantly adjusting it so she wouldn't hit anybody, and stared at her surroundings. Each compartment was very roomy and comfy with fluffy, pillowed booths, overhead compartments, sliding doors connecting them to the hallway, a table in the middle of the space and a large window inviting the image of the outside inside. Many people were already coming in and sitting down talking to people they seemed to know or knew. Healy passed a group of people talking about their summer and another of kids looking at pieces of paper cut into hexagons with images drawn on them. Everyone was talking and moving here and there which Healy smiled too because it was amusing, like she was also a part of all these conversations, but also found a little hard to listen to as she still didn't like loud noises. Healy tried her best not to meet their eyes but she did feel some people looking at her. It did make sense though: out of everyone there Healy felt like she was overly dressed and looked a little unusual.

Healy kept walking until she finally found an empty compartment and dived in while shutting the door. It wasn't as if she didn't like anyone, it was that everything was happening so fast and she needed a minute for everything to quiet down so she could think. Listening to the silence of the room Healy could hear the mumbled voices of others outside her door and the sound of everyone settling in. She rolled her cart against the side next to the door and sat down on the left side next to the window while placing her guitar next to her. It was then Healy felt her heart beating rapidly like a symphony drum and she lightly placed her hand over her heart trying to calm it down, it was like she had just ran 7 miles along a rode brimming with music being pumped in through loud speakers. In a minute Healy heard a pound and high whistle cut through the air and the train jostled forward and cries of good byes could be heard from the outside as the window slid the image of what was outside the train to be moving and change slightly. Healy settled back in her seat and took a deep breath as she felt the moving train roll against the ground, how easily the train moved through the air seemed a complete and drastic change from how hard it took her to get there. Almost anti-climatic. The idea that she was a few centimeters closer to Hogwarts gave her heart beat a quicker pace which Healy tried to settle down, afraid anymore shock and awe could comatose her.

"Oh that's right," Healy exclaimed out loud as she went over to the blue trunk, unzipped it, and took out the mirror necklace that Devina had given to her for her birthday. Healy took the necklace everywhere she went and while slipping it on over her neck she believed the mirror itself could show the best of everything it reflected. She looked down at it and traced her fingers over it's cold surface and gave at it, almost expecting to see something other than herself. Sitting down again and staring out the window Healy began to imagine what Hogwarts would look like when first, a knock came to the door, and then it slid open revealing 4 people standing outside of it, in the group 3 of the 4 had bright red hair while one was a girl and the other 3 were boys. The girl was small and petite with red freckles over her cheeks and nose and the other 2 very tall and looked exactly alike while the other boy had dark skin and long dreadlocks. The red haired boys stepped in, both looking incredibly exhausted, and one looked over at Healy and gave her a smile. It seemed he didn't know someone else was in here.

"Excuse me Miss.," he began as he gripped the table. He looked like he had just run a mile and needed the table to support himself. Healy noted that his voice had an accent that swung a bit with his words; she then remembered she was in England. "We just got here, real late and all, and all the other compartments are full to the busting point. You think you could spare us the room?"

Healy smiled and tried not to laugh, the boy's voice was very funny to her just because it had his accent. Healy began nodding as she looked at all 3 of them.

"Yeah, sure. Come on in!"

All of them looked at Healy a bit strangely; they all seemed to have run in except the dark skinned boy with dread locks. Each of them came in and sat down carefully while staring at her and studying her, maybe trying to place who or what she was. The 2 red headed boys sat down beside each other, showing Healys that not only did they have the same hair and height but that they looked exactly alike; twins! The boy with dread locks sat down beside the twins and the little girl stood there a bit fidgety and Healy noticed that her guitar was on the seat next to her. Healy set it down next to the widow and gestured for the girl to sit next to her which she did shyly with her head down. Healy smiled at her and brought out her hand in front of her towards the young girl, trying to be as friendly as possible.

"Hi, I'm Healy. What's up?"

Do not be confused: Healy was incredibly nervous. This was spectacular to her, people her age who did magic and who were in the same room as her! The girl looked up at Healy through her hair and then picked up her head and then shook Healy's hand carefully.

"I-I'm Ginny…. Ginny Weasly."

"Nice ta meet ya, Ginny," Healy said while giving Ginny's hand a light squeeze. Healy blushed a little once she noticed she was using her southern accent and let go but still smiled. She then looked over at the boys who seemed to be staring at her intently. Healy felt very awkward about this and then jested her hand out at the group assertively.

"I'm Healy, Healy Restrepo. Nice ta meet ya'll."

Noticing her accent was coming out again she just decided to give up and let it happen. The boy with dread locks quickly took Healy's hand and shook it lightly as if Healy was a doll and then a bit more firmly.

"Jordan," he said quickly with a smile while staring at her. "I'm Lee Jordan, 4th year."

Healy smiled at this and shook a bit harder and gave a little laugh.

"Nice ta meet ya Lee!"

Encouraged by this both the twins moved Lee's hand away as one took one hand and the other took the other hand. Both gave Healy a charming grins.

"I'm Fred Weasly," said the twin holding Healy's right hand.

"And I'm George Weasly," said the one with the left. He spoke a bit faster than his brother and after words they both looked at each other and smiled, saying in union:

"We're the Great Weasly Brothers! At your service."

Healy laugh at this as the boys took away their hands and smiled to each other agreeing that they did a good job.

"Was that planned," Healy asked while looking at 2 of them intently.

"Why certainly not," Fred, on the right.

"Why our genius just seems to happen on its own," George on the left said giving an exaggerated pose. Both Healy and Lee Jordan laughed at the, Fred thudding Lee in the shoulder with his elbow. Healy looked over at Ginny, the girl sitting next to her and motioned her finger towards her and the twins.

"Are you guys family?"

"Yes we are," Fred said looking at his brother.

"The amazing Weasly family," George said looking at his brother as well, both of them sitting up straight with wide grins and their noses in the air in a mock-dignified way.

"Known for trouble makers."

"Goof offs."

"Goody-too-shoes."

"And your most favorite people in the world."

Healy laughed again and smiled looking at Ginny would had straightened up and started smiling too. She had big, hazel colored eyes and looked very doll-like.

"We've got another brother you know," George had quickly interjected making Healy look at him with deep interest.

"Really," Healy said curious as she leaned forward a bit and intertwined her fingers to show she was interested. "More of these fabulous Weaslys?"

"Why of course our dear lady," Fred said with a long breath and exaggerated voice, obviously enjoying the audience and encouragmeant."Why there's the younger one of us named Ron."

"And then there's our older brother Percy."

"A git we'll warn you-"

"Wouldn't want you to think otherwise-"

"And then there's Percy's elder and ours' Charlie-"

"He's up in Romania-"

"Working with dragons-"

"You know-"

"Just regular, boring work-"

"And then there's our oldest, Bill-"

"He's out in Egypt-"

"With the mummies-"

"And Gringotts as well."

Healy stared at them and her mouth was opened to a wide grin as she took this all in. Not only were there so many but also, they were all just so amazing!

"Woah," Healy said as she mentally counted them all in her head, putting them (or trying to) all in order. "There's 7 of you guys!"

"Actually 9 if you count mum and dad," George added gesturing his finger

"But who can keep count," Fred said while shrugging his shoulders and leaning back.

"Wow, now that's a family! I bet it's awesome to live with you guys!"

"Well," George said while leaning back and stretching and taking a deep breath in and holding it. "We don't like to brag but-"

"It is," Fred finished while letting out an exaggeratedly big breath. "We are very exciting, very interesting people to live around."

"And with."

Healy smiled and Ginny looked up at her and Healy looked down at her as Ginny smiled. She was especially pretty when she smiled.

"You have a different accent," she said while looking at Healy. "Where are you from?"

As she finished her sentence Ginny covered her mouth and attempted to apologize while Healy brushed it off with a motion with her hand as if it were no big deal, because to her it wasn't.

"Yeah, I'm not from around here. I come from across there." Healy dramatically pointed away from the window and through the hallway.

"Where's there," Lee Jordan asked as he stood and looked out the door window trying to understand where Healy was pointing to. The twins mimicked the motion as if they could also see where she meant.

"America," Healy said while putting down her arm. "It's across this thing called an ocean."

Everyone in the compartment, after the 3 boys sat back down, stared at her in disbelief once she finished her sentence.

"You're from America," Fred asked wide eyed.

"Yep."

"Why aren't you, you know," George said trying to piece together his sentence while pointing in the same direction as Healy was. "In America?"

Healy laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm here 'cause Hogwarts is here and not there."

Again Healy gestured out into the hallway like it was the country itself. Both of the boys became delighted and kept saying things that Healy couldn't quite catch as they were saying things all at the same time. It sounded like a mixture of who-what-when-where-why mixed in with how-can-is-and it's. In a second the 3 of them looked at each other and began having a mini argument as to who was going to say what first which made Healy laugh lightly. Healy looked over at Ginny, curious to get to know her and also wait until the 3 of them had decided who was going to do what next.

"What grade are you in?" Healy asked looking at Ginny with her head resting on the palms of her hands.

"What?" Ginny looked at Healy confused. "What's a grade? What do you mean grade?"

Healy looked confused at Ginny when one of the twins moved over and sat next to Ginny. Healy couldn't tell which one was which at the moment and felt rude for not knowing.

"She means what year you are," he said while looking at Healy.

"Right," the other was still sitting in his place with Lee Jordan next to him. Healy couldn't tell if it was the same one or if Lee had just move. "Me, George and Lee here are all 4th years. Little Ginny here is a 1st year!"

Ginny blushed at this as George began to pet the top of her head lightly and approvingly.

"Yep," George began. "Her first year to Hogwarts! Last of the race of the Weaslys to first step inside."

Healy smiled at this and looked at Ginny.

"Yeah," Healy began. "It's my first time there too."

"Oh," George said while looking at her a bit animatedly. "So you're a first year too!"

Ginny smiled brightly at this at the idea she wasn't the only one going into her grade-class-year-thing.

"Oh no," Healy started, taking in Ginny's smile a little hard as she was upset to disappoint her. "No, I'm a…," Healy had to remember what the word was again. "2nd year now."

They all looked a little confused at this new bit a data.

"Wait," Lee said moving in a bit closer. His dread locks jostled a bit giving his face a very soft look. "I thought this is your first time to Hogwarts?"

"Yeah," Healy replied simply."It is."

"Did you go to another wizarding school in America?"

Healy cocked her head over to the side so it looked like she was leaning on her shoulder, a position she used whenever she was confused.

"There are other Wizard Schools other than Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, well maybe, I mean…. I think so?"

Healy giggle a bit and straightened her head up.

"Well all's I know is that I'm supposed ta be a second year now."

"And you skipped your first year," Ginny questioned while looking up at Healy.

"Ummm, I don't think so. I mean I'm 12 so I guess I'm the same age as every other 2nd year."

"Yeah," George said while nodding. "You are. We got a brother your age."

"Oh yeah," Fred said nodding. "What's his name? The one shorter than us but taller than Ginny."

"Yeah, Ryan something-or-another."

"Regan?"

"Revitus?"

"Rictor?"

"Rajj?"

"Ron! That's his name!"

"Oh yeah! Ron!"

Healy laughed at this as the twins talked.

"Do you guys often forget ya'lls names," Healy said while sitting back as her laugh died down slowly.

"Why of course not," George said while he sat back.

"Yeah," Fred said while leaning forward toward Healy. "We always know our names are Feorge and Gred."

Healy, Lee and Ginny laughed at this as the twins continued to perform. Soon a plump woman with a cart filled top to bottom with snacks had rolled beside the compartment and opened up the door, presenting a beautiful cart dripping with sweets.

"Would anyone like something off the trolley," she asked nicely looking at the group. The boys and Ginny shook their head 'no' but Healy had got up and wandered over into the hallway and stared at the contents of the 'trolley'. It was covered with things she had never seen before and all sorts of things she wanted to try.

"What is all this stuff," Healy said in an amazed tone of voice as she examined everything from top to bottom, taking a mental picture.

"You've never seen any of this," George said as he crouched down next to her pointing to boxes of this and that and containers of who knows what. Healy shook her head 'no' as George's finger crossed each one. He looked at the group with a smile. "Well we can't have that now can we?"

"Why of course not," Fred said with following them. The 2 pooled out silver and bronze coins and pointed at snacks on the cart and taking the same idea Healy laid 10 pieces of silver on the cart and 10 bronze and the boys pointed to even more of the smaller packages.

"Here you are darlings," the woman said putting them in a medium sized box so they were easier to carry in.

"I'll take it," Healy said as she heard the boys discuss who was going to bring it in low voices. It took a minute of persuasion but the boys finally agreed as they filled in and the woman put in a tall stack of what looked like jelly beans for free since it was Healy's first time seeing so much. She smiled at Healy and left with a wave and Healy waved back avidly, nice people are so great. As the woman left and Healy looked down at the snacks in the box she felt a prickly feeling run up her spine, like someone was watching her and when she turned to her left she noticed a boy standing out in the hallway leaning on the wall. He was about Healy's height, maybe an inch taller, and had platinum blond hair that was almost white and colorless eyes. He seemed to be looking Healy up and down, and not in a very comfortable way. Not wanting to be rude Healy bowed her head in greeting to the boy and went back into the compartment and shutting the door behind her. Very weird but easily forgettable as being the same room with Fred and George seemed to make everything seem so much more lively.

For the next few hours the boys took it as their responsibility to watch Healy try and name each type of snack before she tried to eat it and if she got it wrong they would yell very loudly in a depressed and sarcastic manner, making both Healy and Ginny laugh. The game was very fun and soon Healy knew what a cauldron cake was, a pumpkin pasty and, her favorite, a chocolate frog. The chocolate frogs were Healy's favorites because they were chocolate and because at first they'll try to hop away like a real frog unless you catch them, it was like you were working for your treat which was a lot of fun! The twins had teased Healy saying they were actually real frogs you had to eat but Ginny told her they were just joking. not that it mattered because, again, chocolate. The boys asked for Healy's Wizard Cards as she pulled them out since she said she didn't like collecting pieces of paper that she'd eventually lose.

"They're not just paper you know," Lee said as he took one with a woman wearing emerald green robes and holding a yellow bird in her hands on it. "They have actual people on them."

"Really," Healy said looking down at one with an old man with a long with beard and a pair of glasses that looked like half-moons. He seemed slightly familiar to Healy for some reason as she studied him.

"Yeah," Fred said while taking another from a box. "They're all about famous old wizards. Some are still alive today."

"Cool." Healy said as she showed the others the card she held in her hand. "Who's this guy then?"

"Oh that," George said while looking over and chewing on half a cauldron cake, Healy's second favorite. "That's Albus Dumbledore. I got over a hundred of him."

"Oh," Healy said looking at him again, a bit disappointed. "I guess he's not that special."

"Oh he's really amazing," Ginny said. Healy had come to see Ginny was incredibly shy and she looked away and focused on eating her pumpkin pasty, something Healy refused to eat because it was pumpkin.

"Yeah," Fred said while shuffling through the cards. "He's a great wizard, real powerful. He's got the first class of Merlin as his rank."

"Merlin," Healy mused. She knew about Merlin from King Aurther's legends and thought about the idea of such an old and powerful wizard who was cursed to have to be imprisoned in a crystal

"Yeah," George said as he finished his cake. "And, he's the Headmaster at Hogwarts too."

"Really!"

The conversation went back and forth from this and that. Healy talked about music and art and books while the boys talked about all the pranks they did and what teachers to look out for. Ginny and Healy laughed a lot as the boys constantly joked around and once it became dark outside Healy noticed the boys and Ginny change into black robes. Healy didn't particularly like that fashion sense and decided to skip it and look out the window when she saw a rush of lights. Standing up to get a closer look George stepped beside her and pointed at the massive building at the top of what looked like a mountain the train was quickly

"That's Hogwarts up there," he whispered and then motioned for Ginny to come over and join them.

"Wow," Healy said as she pressed her nose to the glass. Hogwarts seemed massive from so far away and Healy couldn't keep her eyes off the wonderful castle.

"Hey," George said as he patted her head and Healy looked up at him. "If you get into Gryffindor, we can hang out all the time."


	4. Sorting out the stories

By the time the train had stopped the group, besides Healy, had changed into their robes. Healy watched this happen in slight confusion and interest.

"Aren't you going to change?" Ginny asked as she slipped her arms through her robe and looked over at Healy.

"Nah," Healy replied with a flip of her hand. "Conformity's not really my style."

Most of the other students had done the same and pack themselves out in the now crowded hallway. Both Ginny and Healy had made their ways up to the door and bounced up and down, trying their best to find any sort of space they could run into so they could leave.

"I'd wait if I were you 2," Lee Jordan said as he put a h By the time the train stopped Healy had seen others begin to file out of their individual compartments and on each of their shoulders. "You don't want to be swallowed up by that mob out there."

"I'll fight them all if it means getting up to that castle faster," Healy muttered as Lee pulled her and Ginny away from the door. Healy was still staring for an opening until after about 5 minutes of continuous pushing and crowding that Healy just sat down next to the twins and Lee sat next to Ginny staring at Healy. Lee was still trying to get used to the idea of a foreigner let alone an American. Noticing this Healy decided to start waving every time she caught Lee staring at her which would make him blush and look away. Getting board of peeking at the still too big crowd Healy turned her attention to studying the twins.

"How do you tell each other a part," Healy asked the 2 of them; she had been wondering about that for a while and was too afraid to call them by their names because of it. Both Fred and George smiled and wrapped an arm around one of their shoulders so their heads were right next to each other and their one smile looked like a big crescent moon painted on a continuous face.

"No one's found out just yet," said Fred.

"Seems too hard for the rest of them," George finished.

"Not like we throw out hints at all."

"We never make it easy."

"Seems impossible for everyone."

Healy smiled widely at the boys and nodded her head. "Challenge accepted!"

Looking over at Ginny Healy continued to smile and then took one of her hands excitedly.

"You'll help me right," Healy asked while putting on a serious face and staring Ginny straight in the eyes.

"Oh," Ginny was very confused and it took her a minute for her to stutter out an answer. "O-o-o-okay?"

Healy broke into a wide smile and jumped out of her seat to give Ginny a quick squeeze for a hug and then let her go and focused her attention on the boys for a minute.

"Left is Fred and right is George!"

The boys were still a little confused after seeing Healy's motion of a hug and question but then they broke out into a smile and shook their heads sadly.

"So sorry," said George, on the left.

"And so close," Fred finished. The group poked fun at the twins trying to find any difference in their robes or height, there was none, until the hall was clear enough for the five of them to slip through. Healy grabbed her guitar but Fred stopped her from grabbin' her trunks saying that they would be in her dorm room when she got there.

"But how will they know it's my dorm room? Do they assign them for us?"

"Nope," Fred said smiling while pulling the door open. "They just get there."

No matter how much Lee, the twins and even Ginny protested about her guitar Healy flat out refused to leave without it. In her mind the guitar was everything to Healy's name here and it was goin' where ever she went. After Healy said just that Fred and George shrugged but glanced over at each other in some sort of way that made Healy hold onto her guitar even tighter. On their way down the hallway the group met up with another tall, red head that looked like the twins but wore a pair of glasses and had a very high air about him. Healy noticed he had a weird badge that he wore over his robes and she thought he looked very professional. Healy had a thing for guys with glasses. As they got closer to them Healy could definitely tell he looked like Fred and George, and he must know them because as soon as he caught a look at the two of them he immediately went over and started scolding them.

"And how many times do I have to remind you 2," the tall boy with glasses started as he was talking to the twins. He had a very angry tone and looked as if he had given the same speech a hundred times over, and the boys showed that he seemed to do just that as they both had bored and annoyed looks on their faces and slumped posture as he talked. But before he could finish both of the twins had stopped him and pulled Healy up over to the by her arm and then positioned her in-between them and smiled politely.

"That's all nice and right Percy but we have someone you should meet here," Fred said while gripping one of Healy's shoulders with his hand and George gripped the other.

"This here is our new, very interesting friend Healy," George said with a big smile and the two looked at each other and smiled at Percy and said in union:

"She's American."

The tall boy, named Percy, seemed to have to fix his glasses to get a better look at Healy and then he straightened up very tall, holding his chest out to show off the badge, and smiled down at Healy.

"Nice to meet you Miss. My name is Percy, Percy Weasly, and I am the Prefect of Gryffindor."

"Oh," Healy began while looking up at him. "You must be Fred, George's and Ginny's older brother!"

Percy blushed slightly and said yes. Healy smiled and held out her hand saying it was nice to meet him and the 2 gave each other strong shake while Fred whispered down into Healy's ear: "Don't be fooled by him for a minute, he's a stubborn git who won't let it slide when you set dungbombs off in one of the more nasty staff member's offices."

Healy was about to ask what a dungbomb was when she caught Percy glare at his brothers as he let go of her hand.

"I don't want any more trouble from you 2 this year," Percy said while trying to seem even more in charge now that both Ginny and Healy were there. Really Percy wanted to make a good impression for the school, he could tell Ginny was afraid and that Healy was easily impressionable. "And while we're all here have any of you seen Ron?"

"Not once," Fred said, suddenly his face began to show signs of worry. "Come to mention it, I don't quite remember him after we all went through the portal. Kind of hard when you're running to make it in the last minute."

"Do you think he got on alright," Ginny questioned looking up at her older brothers. A look of worry creased her face as she thought of the idea of him not being accounted for.

"Of course he's alright," George said slinging his arm over Ginny's farthest shoulder and pulled her in for a hug at his side. "Him and Harry probably just ran on at the last minute and got off before all of us. No need to worry Percy!"

"Alright," Percy said while he straightened his glasses. It was clear to see from this that Percy cared about his family the most to Healy and she respected that about him, that and she couldn't help but find or make up good points about him. Again, she had a thing for guys with glasses. Percy looked down at Healy and nodded his head at her giving her a knowing smile. "If you need anything, just ask me."

"Or us," Fred and George both interjected while Fred pulled Healy into the same kind of hug George had Ginny in.

"You forgot," Fred started giving Healy's shoulder a slight, playful squeeze.

"We found her first," George finished with a cocky smile.

"What about me," Lee said upset at the idea of being left out.

"Oh," Healy said while pulling Lee over by his arm next to her. "Come and join the group Lee!"

Soon the troop set off down and off the train onto a crowded coupled street which was filled with other students in black robes and hats so it looked like waves of black taking over the very ground only bumping against a few lanterns held on the ground. The ground was like a reflection of the dark, starry sky reflected in a moving sea as it was so crowded the group had to wait before getting off for fear of losing each other. Even staying together on the ground was a bit hard because so many people were bumping into each other due to how many different people of different shapes and sizes were trying to find a plot of ground to call their own. Healy and Ginny were practically crushed between Lee Jordan and Percy who was trying to call to the students to settle down and wait for the carriages to arrive.

"Carriages," Healy shouted over the rumble and roar of voices echoing off the very ground underneath their feet. "You mean we're not walking up the hill, there?"

"Oh no," Lee Jordan said, he had to shout down at Healy as he was both taller than her and the noise was increasing.

"All the first years go by boat up to the castle while the rest of us take carriages up to the main hall!"

"We get to paddle boats!" Healy was very excited by the prospect of exercise as being locked in a cart, no matter how much fun it is to look out the window, wasn't really her taste. She liked to move around too much.

"Just watch out in the water," a deep and menacing voice came behind from both Healy and Ginny. Ginny shook a little and pressed to Healy a bit closer.

"Yeah," another voice said. "After all, you know what lies at the bottom of that lake…"

Amusement could be heard in the tone and in a second two arms wrapped over both of the girl's shoulders and the mysterious voices made themselves be known as Fred and George laughing.

"A giant squid," they yelled in union while giving both the girls a tight squeeze as if a squid had got them both. Healy and Ginny had both screamed loudly but then erupted into laughter as soon as they recognized the boys. Once they let them go both the boys and Lee joined in the laughter until Percy turned around to tell them to quit goofing off. Just in a second the group saw the wave of people split in half, like Abraham and the Red Sea, making way for a giant of a man sashay through the hole while holding up a lantern above his head. The man was over 6 or 7 feet, was as built as body builder with muscle and had a mass of messy black hair growing from both a beard and from the top of his head. He had bright, brown eyes that resembled 2 shiny beetles sitting on his face. To Healy he looked like a giant, unkempt teddy bear; he made her smile.

"First years," the man shouted his voice deep and heavy as it roared over all other voices on the platform. "First years, this way! Come over and meet up over here te get te Hogwarts!"

"Hagrid," Fred shouted over at the man. Fred only had to bounce up slightly on his toes as both he and George were very tall. "Hey Hagrid, over here!"

The giant of a man, named Hagrid turned and saw Fred and walked up over to him with a small group of 4 or 5 first years following him.

"'Ello George," Hagrid said with a smile as he looked at the twins. "Or was that one Fred? Can never tell the group of you apart no more. I'd only remember Ron since he and Harry are always together. Have you all seen the pair yet?"

"Not yet," George said. He pushed Ginny forward and smiled up at Hagrid. "This here's our little sister, Ginny."

"Last of the clan," Fred finished giving his twin a grin and petting Ginny's shoulder. Ginny looked up very nervously and obviously shaken up as she approached Hagrid; but Hagrid smiled down causing slits to crease around and below his eyes as he looked at Ginny.

"No worries Girlie," Hagrid said as he directed the other first years over to her and gave a wave. "We'll make sure you get up to the castle and- Why Merlin's Beard! I can't believe my eyes!"  
Hagrid had taken his eyes off of Ginny and looked straight at Healy, who was just as shocked as the group of first years as she looked up at the man who was steadily approaching her. He still had a wide smile on his face but his eyes were in disbelief.

"I can't believe it," Hagrid said as he stopped and looked down at Healy. "Are you… you're Healy right? Healy Res-Reec-Rem- with the last name no one could pronounce?"

Healy stared up at the man in shock; the fact that he knew her name was a huge surprise and made her brain buzz about how he could know such a thing. Healy nodded her head slowly forward: "Yeah, that's me."

"Oh! Great and powerful Merlin!" Hagrid had set 2 giant hands gently around her arms and picked her up in the air, giving Healy the perspective of a bird as she now was looking down at every other person on the platform. "Why look how you've grown! You've become such a beautiful young lady. And those eyes! Their green! And such a color green at that, why, they're some of the prettiest I've seen before!"

Normally someone would take this as dangerous and be terrified but Healy felt fine. In fact, Healy felt like this had happened somewhere else, sometime a long time ago that she couldn't quite remember. Healy broke out into a wide smile and laughs as Hagrid held her up and the cool wind of the night flew through her hair and jingled her earings.

"It's nice to meet you sir," Healy shouted down through her laughs as she looked down at the man.

"Oh no sir's here Healy! Call me Hagrid! Everyone here calls me that! Gameskeeper and keeper of keys I am!" He set Healy down on her feet back in between Percy and Lee with Healy smiling joyfully as if she had come off a ride. "You probly' don't remember me now, not that I'm surprised. After all you were just a wee little baby when I first met you. And look at you now! All grown up and comin' to Hogwarts!"

Hagrid wiped his eyes a bit and then looked at Healy and Ginny with a renewed smile. "Anyway, I.. I know you're supposed te be a second year and all but, I have strictest orders from Dumbledore to take you with the rest of the first years. You need to get sorted and all that after all."

Healy nodded her head in agreement, Ginny looked relieved at the thought that Healy would be with her but Lee and the twins kept clamorin' for questions as to how Hagrid knew Healy and why she was a second year instead of a first.

"I'll try and explain later," Healy called back to the boys as Hagrid directed them all to gather more first years and take them to the boats. "You know, once I get all of it myself!"

It took 10 minutes to get the group of first years together and Hagrid directed them to get into groups and sail in one of the individual boats up to the school. The boats were enchanted so the kids didn't have to do much work. Healy and Ginny rode together in a boat with Hagrid and another boy named Colin. They set off onto the black river as the boat cut into the river along with a group of others following them and Hagrid talking loudly to Healy.

"Oh you don't know how amazing it is te see yeh again! I mean, we weren't even sure you'd become a witch and all and just this summer, when we were cleaning up after some messy business I tell you, Dumbledore comes up and says te be on the lookout for you and take you out with the first years up to the school. I tell yeh, I was more than surprised, I was delighted!"

"How do you know me anyhow," Healy asked as she dipped an oar in and out of the lake, it was easy to pull through but each time Healy felt she had to be careful not to hit anything by accident. "I mean I never knew anything about being magick, well magick world related, until Devina Krusch saw me on my birthday."

"Why we've known about you since you were born! Haven't you heard of Zummary magick?"

"Yeah, but not much."

"Well you see, Zummary magick is a spiritual magick that a person isn't just born with. The magick lies inside the family's ancestors until it finds a person who shows magickal ability and a willingness to study and practice it, and then it comes out. Now generations after generations can go by, bloodlines get all damp with different blood and families and where and who they're from, but the magic still follows them. You, young lady, we knew you were directly connected to a living member, something like a second of third cousin or, not really 'direct' but around in the family. And that meant that your powers were just like his, and you've actually tried to do magick!"

"Huh," Healy sat back as she continued to row and tossed that in her head. "So… I'm sort of like that Russian sleeper cell spy in that movie "Salt". Cool!"

Hagrid looked out over the river real long and watched the waves and other boats, making sure the others were all right. He looked back at the group with another big smile. "Just thinkin' about all of this; last year I met up with Harry after so long and now I see you… Oh! I'm gonna have to introduce the pair of you to each other! Thinkin' about it, you 2 would get right along I'm sure!"

"I think I've heard about Zummary before," Ginny said quietly and she held her oar, she was obviously afraid of the idea of a giant squid. "But I can't quite remember where…"

"It was probably nowhere important," Hagrid said quickly. "So, we know Healy's story here, how about yours Colin?"  
Healy knew why Hagrid kept the name Zummary out of the conversation, Healy knew Monterrey Zummary, the youngest of the household who was 20 now, had been charged as being a great thief with no evidence to fully convict him. Healy herself didn't know the details, not even when he was arrested. She looked over at Colin and gave a smile and encouraged him to tell.

"Well," he started looking at Healy and then Ginny and Hagrid, he was smiling widely and his brown hair almost mixed in with the sky. "I come from inland here, out of London. I've got a brother back at home and, Oh! And I like to shoot pictures!" Colin took out a camera and showed it to the group.

"You don't say," Healy said with a big smile as she continued to paddle and talked about photography with Colin for a while until they forced Hagrid to talk about himself.

"Well I like raisen animals on the grounds when I'm not taken care of everythin'. Mostly magickal creatures that you probably-"

"Like dragons," Healy said excitedly almost jumping up and knocking around the boat and then sitting down. "And Unicorns! How about fairies? Oh! And what about centaurs and Hobgoblins?"

The conversation went like this as everyone questioned each other excitedly and laughing very much. By the time the boat hit dry land the group reluctantly said "good bye" to Hagrid who promised to see them in the Great Hall in time for sorting. On their way up Colin, Ginny and Healy saw a raggedy man slouched over and sneering at the children. He was balding and the hair he still had was long and thin as it frayed over his grayish-flesh tone skin.

"Well don't just stand there," he barked at the kids marking a few of them jump. Healy made an upset look at the man as she never liked it when someone barked orders at her. "Come in! And don't get this floor dirty with your muddy feet. It took me an entire summer to get everything in this castle clean and I don't want a single one of you making all my hard work go to waste."

As everyone filled in Healy leaned over to Ginny and Collin and whispered to them: "Looks like someone fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."

Ginny and Collin both giggled at this as they entered, Healy mostly meant the man's personality more than anything else. The Entrance hall was a huge room that stretched from the front door all the way into a dip which look like it lead to the basements. A great stair case lead from the side with bronze statues around it while the stairs themselves climbed up to higher and higher heights that looked as if they went on into the sky. The floors were a polished marble with a slight design of lines and patterns on the ground and the walls hung with golden framed portraits and painting which, surprisingly, waved and said hello! Healy and Collin both gapped at the pictures and pointed them out to Ginny who said it was normal for pictures to wave and say hello where she came from. Healy asked Colin if he had his camera and when he said yes she dragged him and Ginny over in front of the big picture of a group of knights, some jousting and practicing while the others looked like they were arm wrestling. Healy made Collin take a picture of her and Ginny and then forced Collin over where they awkwardly positioned the camera and all 3 of them took a picture together.

As many of the first years grouped together asking what was going to happen next, many of which looked up at Healy (as she and the others came to the group) expecting her to know, a tall woman wearing long, emerald green robes, a set of square rimmed glasses and her black hair pulled back into a tight bun came over to the students. Her chin was turned upwards and she had a look of stern authority as if she was used to dealing with young children. Healy instantly knew she didn't want to get on her bad side; she seemed a lot like a military commander!

"Students," the woman said calmly looking through the group through their very skins with her blue eyes. "My name is Professor McGonagall, I am the transfigurations teacher as well as the supervisor of Gryffindor. Come and line up in an orderly fashion. We shall proceed to the Great Hall for the sorting ceremony. Once you are sorted you shall sit down at your designated table with your house mates and then the feast shall begin."

At the word feast many of the children's faces lit up as they looked around trying to talk about what would be there and what would happen until Professor McGonagall began her evil eye and many of the mouths froze shut or stayed unmoving in place. As she turned the students followed behind her, Healy watched her closely as her emerald robes shivered over the floor. They entered a narrower hallway with a curtain separating it from another room that was aglow with a form of soft light and emitting and dull roar. When Healy twisted her head she could just see she saw, through a crack of space in between the curtains, thousands of candles lit and floating over an entire room, bigger than 2 football fields and filled with students divided at 4 different tables. The room was decorated in banners of red and gold, the colors were bright and almost on fire, an exciting feeling that made Healy smile. Once she stopped the students began to line up in 2 rows with Healy, Collin and Ginny in the middle of one watching her as she left off through a side door into the large room. As she left the students began to discuss what was going to happen, constantly looking back at Healy for answers, which sparked the trio's conversation.

"So what happens now," Healy asked looking directly at Ginny.

"We're going to get sorted into our houses," Ginny said leaning in to Collin and Healy as she knew if she spoke too loud everyone would storm them all for answers. "There's going to be some sort of test, something with a hat I think, and it puts you into one of the 4 respected houses."

"What houses are there?" Healy thought about actual houses and imagined them as boat houses and mansions and castles in the sky.

"Well," Collin started as he looked back and forth from the curtain and to the group. "There's Slytherine, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor."

"What's a Hufflepuff?" Healy gave a sort of confused and disturbed look as she said this. "Sounds like some sort of pumpkin."

"I think they're all named after the original founders," Ginny said looking away to check no one was listening. Ginny wasn't deathly afraid of explaining anything but she didn't want to be the one to have to tell everyone what was going to happen.

"Hmm," Healy started as she thought of all the animals, and vegetable/gourd, in the houses. "Being a part of something that's a Griffin would be fun."

"How does the sorting happen do you think," Collin asked as he looked at Ginny. But before she could answer the question the curtain was drawn back revealing the full impact of the hall filled with other students. Many of them stood up and clapped for the group of first years while others sat in their seats while cheering for them. Healy and Ginny both gave a look of horror out to the crowd.

"Well now," Healy started as she looked at the crowd, still trying to rub off the look of terrified without the use of her somehow unmoving hands. "Welcome to the nightmare of anyone with stage fright. Example: Me."

"Do you think we'll have to get sorted in front of everyone here," Collin asked while nearly shaking in his spot.

"Well it looks like it." Healy said while twisting her head side to side and looking at the room.

As the first years stood there in fright, Healy considering running out of there and playing guitar to get back home like a hobo, Professor McGonagall went to a boosted stage set up at the front of the room right in front of a long table that sat what looked like all of the teachers. Healy didn't catch what any of them looked like as she was busy watching McGonagall place what looked like an old hat on the table stool and pulled out a scroll as she stood beside it. Healy wondered if maybe the hat was trash as it looked like it was decomposing on the spot. Right that minute Healy saw a long slit open up in the front of it, thinking the seams were so loose it was falling apart from the movement, and it looked as if it was flapping open and closed. All of the students had gone quiet once they saw this and Healy's eyes had gone wide as she saw what used to look like decomposition turn out to be a face etching itself out on the hat. A second later an inhalation had taken place up front and the hat began to emit a loud and ancient voice that seemed to have a rhythm from a thousand years over:

"Here me now all those here,  
And see the crowing of those who are dear,  
Our dear new students who come to me,  
To be placed in the house with whom they deserve to be!  
Let them be placed in the Slytherine house of pride,  
Take them for their vigorous tide,  
Of passion and determination for their home base,  
And be a part of the house that takes its right place!  
See the house of Hufflepuff,  
Of kindness and loyalty that rises against the tough,  
They will help all friends and foes alike,  
For they wouldn't hurt those just for spike!  
The smart and amazing Ravenclaw,  
Is known for being the home of scholars of heights so tall,  
Let your mind open to glory,  
As you will reach the stars that are left behind in the early morning!  
Strong of heart and mind open these doors,  
For you shall be placed in Gryffindor,  
And though you seek the biggest challenge every day,  
Others of your kind will help you on the way!  
Now that you've heard my call from here,  
Know that I shall see your true self in one short peer,  
Although I seem nothing but patches and seams,  
My magick will bring you to your true destined teams!"

Once the singing had stopped and the hat sunk back into what looked like an ordinary accessory, while Healy felt it was calling her out for thinking it was old and decrepit, Professor McGonagall stepped forward and looked at the hall.

"We shall do something a bit differently tonight," she announced. The students began to buzz with questions before the Professor cleared her through and everyone gave her their undivided attention. "Tonight I will be calling up a second year for sorting. She was not enrolled last year and shall be joining the other second years as soon as the term starts. She will have some trouble adjusting I'm sure, due to her new surroundings, but we here at Hogwarts believe she will excel along with the rest of her class. I expect her class to be courteous to her and treat her with respect. Now, please come up Miss. Healy Restrepo."

It took a minute, and several pushes from Collin and another first year, before Healy began to walk out towards and on stage. It was then Healy began to mentally kick herself for not wearing the robes like everyone else and leaving her guitar on the train. Healy had to keep telling her legs not to give out on themselves on the stage as she felt no shaking on the outside but her bones were chattering on the inside. Everyone in the hall were staring at her as she walked by, a few mutterings could be heard as she passed that made her feel even more freaked out by her situation. Somehow Healy made her way through the stage with a straight back and chin up; and even more miraculously she made it to the seat without dying!

Healy sat down quickly and took in a silent breath; she had laid her guitar beside her on the ground and looked straight forward into the hall. Every person seemed to be examining her as if she was under the knife in surgery, as if they were boning her up before anything happened. Professor McGonagall had picked up the hat and as she laid it on Healy's head. The hat had fallen over Healy's eyes and left her in darkness and as it fell over her ears she became deaf to even the hum of the air. All Healy could do was keep telling herself: "Don't show weakness, they're not gonna get me yet."

"Oh! Such passion in this one!"

A voice had infiltrated Healy's head and its thoughts began to intermingle with hers'.

"Hey," Healy began while she looked through the darkness with her eyes, but she couldn't seem to speak. "Who's in here? And what feels like something's poking in my head?"

"That would be me, child. And my, how inquisitive! I see question after question in here, so many questions looking for so many answers. In fact I think you're asking more questions than giving out answers."

"The smartest man in the world is the one with the most questions rather than the one with all the answers."

"Ha! And interesting theory, child. But let's see here…. Ah! Here it is: Talent! And lots of it, not nessicarely magickal but talent all around. Let's see here… Ravenclaw? No, no! Ravenclaw won't do; smart yes but you wouldn't be good in a place where that's all you do."

"I like school. I don't like the idiots inside it though."

"Hmm, a bit cruel. And here I see you are very determined and ambitious. But no, Slytherine is most definitely not for you! Let's see… you seem a good fit for Hufflepuff. You are very loyal, very kind and willing to help. Hufflepuff would be good for you; or would you be good for Hufflepuff? I wonder if I peered down a bit more…"

"Hey! Careful in there! Don't go looking so far! I haven't even been there and I'm not letting someone else go there before me!"

"Relax child! Do you want to be sorted or not? In fact, what do you want?"

"In general? Something exciting! I've been bored with everything! I don't want to be bored and sad anymore, that's why I came here. This is my escape, my adventure. I'm going to see things and meet people who will make my life fun. And I'll do something amazing; I know it, I taste it! I'll see a unicorn and fly a broom and I'll climb the tallest mountains and the highest trees so I can jump and catch the stars! Wow… Did I just say, uhhh, think that? Okay, no farther! No more me saying embarrassing stuff like that, alright? That's there for me to think and no one to hear!"

"Ha! I see it now! Why, it's so obvious now that I take a step back and look at you. The only place you belong is:

"GRYFFINDOR!"

When Professor McGonagall took the hat off of Healy's head Healy saw the entire table on the far left had leapt up and were cheering so loud it was like Mardie Grauss and a Kiss concert all in one small area. As Healy stood up she noticed she could finally feel her legs again and while taking up her guitar she smiled widely and looked at the entire table filled with people of every shape and size. Once Healy stepped down and made her way to the table and group of 5 people about her height gathered in front of her and started shaking her hands and congratulating her.

"But I didn't do anything," Healy managed to choke out with a laugh before she caught sight of Fred and George running up to her, grab her arms and pulling her over beside them and sat her down in between them.

"Welcome to the family," they shouted and the others sat back down and leaned over to try and talk to her. Questions were rolling off their tongues but Professor McGonagall had silenced them all as she began calling out names. But that didn't stop others from questioning her every now and then.

"That was a hat stall," a boy with reddish-blond hair yelled over the group as he looked over at Healy. "A whole 7 and a half minutes! The first one in over 10 years!"

"Where did you go to school before," a 5th year across from George and Lee.

"RAVENCLAW!"

"I went to my local public middle school," Healy quickly replied.

"Are your parent's magick or not," a 3rd year beside Percy said as he hopped up quickly while trying to make sure Percy didn't tell him to sit down.

"SLYTHERINE!"

"Nah, I'm the first of my family."

"Where's your accent from," a 2nd year girl with long black hair sitting next to an Indian girl asked.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Well to me, you guys are the ones with the accents."

"Would you all be quiet please," a girl with long and frizzy brown hair hissed from right across Healy. She was Healy's height and her upper teeth were slightly larger than her bottoms. Her chin was high up and her shoulders pushed back as she spoke. "You can all talk about this all later. Right now, SOME of us are trying to watch the sorting."

Most of the others looked down angrily at the girl but Healy simply smiled and said "okay" and turned to watch the sorting as well. Truthfully she was beginning to get tired of answering so many questions too, and her stomach was beginning to demand payment for its long term of silence and good work for not emptying anything on her walk across the stage.

"But one quick question," Healy shot over to the girl once a loud session of cheering over at the Hufflepuff table right next to them. "When do we get to this feast thing? I'm about to chew Fred's arm off here."

"Hey," Fred said surprised and jokingly with a shocked look as he looked down at Healy.

"After the sorting is over," the girl said under her breath as she concentrated at the stage.

Healy was happy to see Collin be called over to the Gryffindor table and she grabbed his hand as he passed by and shook it vigorously in congratulations. As more students were called and sorted it came to the end of Ginny. It took 3 minutes and she was finally called over to Gryffindor. Healy, Percy and the twins all jumped up in cheers as Ginny ran over. Healy had grabbed her in a bear hug and the 2 laughed and cheered as the Weasly boys all cheered about being a "full family".

"We've got the youngest," Fred began.

"An adopted one," George continued.

"And now we know that Ron's already in trouble down in the dungeons!"

"Aren't we so proud," George said while making a fake cough and faking a tear.

"Dungeons," Healy shouted as she looked up at the twins while still holding Ginny. "We've got dungeons here? Do they keep the dragons there or is that where they torture us?"

The twins both laughed at this and looked sympathetically at the girls.

"Unless you mean Potions with Snape," Fred said while gesturing with his arm.

"Nope," George finished. "Other than that, none."

As they all sat down the hall was abuzz with commotion of people talking, almost about the same thing: Food. Healy hadn't noticed before but when she looked down at the table she saw huge plates of solid gold meant for holding food and smaller plates, utensils and huge cups of gold for the individual. Healy could feel the rumble in her stomach to stop teasing her as it turned violent and began demanding food. Healy looked over to the girl across from her, deciding she was the one with all the answers so far, but before she could ask her question a tall man in purple robes and half-moon glasses had stepped on to the stage. Healy instantly recognized him; it was Albus Dumbledore! He was tall and straight, his white beard flowing down to his chest like tinsel on a Christmas tree and his smile was warm and familiar. Healy couldn't take her eyes off the man as he reminded her of something far away, of lights that danced in darkrooms when you were afraid and of warm blankets to hide under when the room could be snowing.

"Welcome," Dumbledore had said. His voice rung throughout the room like church bells on Sunday and he looked as if he were looking at every person directly. "And I am pleased to say again, welcome to yet another year here at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. This year, like so many others before us, is showing to be one of new quests that will answer old questions and bring about new ones. This year I am happy to announce that the school has both welcome its first foreign exchange student but also its first celebrity. This year out Defense Against the Dark Arts professor will be My. Gregory Lockhart."

At this, a blond man sitting at the long table wearing blue had stood up and gave a wave like he was looking at adoring fans. Many of the students started clapping and a couple of girls, including the one across from Healy, had stood up and cheered once they saw him.

"Really," Healy said during all of the commotion and as people began to sit down. "Him? I mean, yeah I saw his books and flipped through them but he's nothing but a pretty face and a writer. And not even a good one at that! Does he even have a teaching license?"

"Oh you don't know what you're talking about," the girl across from her huffed as she looked at Healy. "He obviously deserves to be a teacher or else Dumbledore wouldn't have given him the job!"

"Now, now Hermione," Fred said as he looked back and forth between her and Healy. "We're all a little anxious to see the man in action before deciding if he's a crock or not. Let's just hope he lets us do spells in class, alright?"

"Let's hope he doesn't start acting a fool over himself instead of teaches," Healy said to herself, getting a few glares from the girls on her table and the one next to them. "Oh great," Healy thought as she saw this. "Five minutes and already all the girls hate me. Woopdy-doo!"

"Now then," Dumbledore continued after the room settled down. "I know we are all anxious to start the feast, but first we need to discuss the simple rules and regulations here in Hogwarts. To start, under no circumstances are first years or any student not accompanied with a teacher are allowed into the Forbidden Forest."

"Oooh," Healy said under her breath as she heard all of this. "That just makes me wanna go even more!"

"Secondly, all students must follow the general rules and regulations of the student conduct. You must remember the items that are not allowed in Hogwarts have stayed the same. And please do be careful not to bring or drop any dungbombs." Dumbledore looked directly at Fred and George who then gave a shocked and insulted look over at him, making both Healy and Ginny giggle. "Please do note that this year Professor Flinch will be reinstating the school music class that meets every Sunday. Also, the Quidditch season practices for each of the houses must be notified as soon as possible to best schedule practice times and areas."

Healy barely followed some of the terms Dumbledore had thrown out there, but she did recognize the term "music class" and smiled while feeling her guitar.

"And lastly," Dumbledore's face had turned into an even brighter smile, one that was like a father talking to his young child. "I hope that everyone here is ready for the new challenges the school year will offer them and take them with a firm grip. We all know that we are a part of one family here in Hogwarts, not just your house family, but your academic family. I know that this year, shall be one of Hogwarts best for all. And now, without a moment too soon for all of you, let the feast begin!"

As he said this Healy turned her head and saw as right and left food began to build itself upon each of the giant gold dishes. Each plate towered with food that made everyone's mouths water. Healy smelt the food and saw but she could hardly believe it, she still could barely believe it when she saw student after student begin piling food onto their plates with speed equal to that of a racing horse. Healy took a fork next to her and poked the inside of one of potatoes that was staked in front of her. Drawing it back she saw it was perfectly cooked through and dripping with butter that smelt so rich she felt it didn't even belong to her.

"Hey," a noise came from down the table back up to where Healy was. "Could someone pass the potatoes?"

"I'll get them," George said as he reached for them; but Healy's arm intercepted as she picked them up.

"Nah," Healy said as she stood up. "I've got 'um."

Healy just walked over to where the voice was sitting and laid them beside a short, fairly big boy with a childish face and black hair. He looked up at Healy and his eyes went wide but then he instantly looked away.

"Come on Neville," a boy with reddish-blond hair, the same boy who made a comment about the 'hat-stall' earlier, said to him as he looked at Healy. "Meet our new classmate!"

"The name's Flinch," a boy with blond hair said as he stood up and offered out his hand, which Healy took gladly and gave a light shake. "We're in the same class this year."

"Nice ta meet cha, Finch. The name's Healy."

"Hi," a dark skinned boy on the other side of Neville said as he stood up and looked at Healy. "Dean, that's me. The one next to me is Neville and the one over there is Seamus. We're all 2nd years here!"

Healy looked down at Neville and over at Dean and smiled gingerly as she let go of Flinch's hand. The 4 of them talked lightly about what they thought the school was going to be like and how they got there. Seamus had offered Healy the seat next to him but Healy had then looked back at where Ginny and the twins were and longed to be back with them. Even if the twins were now mixing handfuls of what looked like pink sludge secretly into the mashpotatoes bowl.

"Well, if it doesn't bother ya'll much, I'm gonna steal one of these potatoes here and get back to my seat."

Healy put a few the potatoes in a napkin and waved by to the boys, saying that she hoped to talk to them more tomorrow, and headed back to her seat where she instantly began eating the potatoes. Feeling the nerve in her stomach rise to the challenge she took up the roast beef, carrots, peas, ham, and searched everywhere for a biscuit but settled for 3 dinner rolls. She saw several containers of liquid and saw one was labeled "water" and the other "pumpkin juice" and decided water sounded better than the pumpkin juice. Healy didn't think pumpkin could taste could. As she stuffed her mouth she listened to the stories being passed down the table; stories from the professor's lessons from last year, rumors why the old dark arts professor was gone, and a strange one about a boy Healy hadn't heard of. He was continually being called 'The-boy-who-lived' and referenced to a scar on his forehead that he got from some battle or something.

"His name is Harry," Hermione had said aloud to the people who wouldn't call him by his name. "He's Harry Potter and he's a good student and a good friend. Now please stop talking about him as if he doesn't exist!"

Healy was munching through a dinner roll stuffed with ham and something leafy and green Healy found on a side plate as she heard this. Even though she considered Hermione to be smart she didn't find her very nice at all. Or maybe she just wasn't friendly?

"What'd he do," Healy said in between bites until she swallowed and began again, directing her question to Hermione."What'd this Harry-who's-it-name done that gave him the nickname? Was he in some war or somethin'?"

"You don't know?" Hermione looked shocked and almost apauld at Healy. "He's was all over the Wizarding News last year for months, and he's also one of the most known wizards in our generation."

"Umm, maybe I should know that but I don't." Healy picked up her fork and pulled a chunk of roast beef from the bone and poured gravy over it before looking back up at Hermione. "I've only been in this whole Magick World for a few months now. I haven't been introduced to any popular topics just yet."

"I wouldn't have come here so unprepared." Hermione said as she took a bite off something on her plate. Healy was considering flipping her plate over Hermione's head, Healy hated snobs. But soon Hermione started over again in a less snobbish tone. "Harry survived a deadly curse used to kill hundreds of wizards by You-Know-Who; his parents were killed that same night and Harry was supposed to die. But the curse went wrong and You-Know-Who got hurt, probably killed, and fled the scene. Harry was the only survivor and no one's seen You-Know-Who since!"

Healy would have been greatly impressed; she was already nodding her head in astonishment at the thought of something so unreal actually happening. But there was one question she had to understand before actually getting the story: "Whose 'You-Know-Who?"

Hermione dropped her fork and knife on her plate and looked at Healy with high eyebrows and a dangling mouth. It was either a look of shock or an invisible mouse was hanging out of her mouth.

"You have got to be joking," Hermione said with the same look of shock. "You can't be serious. You must know who He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is!"

"Are we still talking about the same person here?"

"Ugh!" Hermione made a gesture in the air as she looked at Healy in astonishment. "I can't believe this! You don't know who the most dangerous wizard in the world is and you know nothing about him!? Just where have you been living all these years?"

Healy gave a hard and angry glare over at Hermione as she picked up her own for with food on it.

"I live in America. With people who don't believe in magick. Sorry for being so uninformed."

Healy looked back down at her plate obviously trying to ignore Hermione. Usually in times like this Healy would have moved down a few seats away from her but she didn't want to. She wanted to stay next to Fred and George and be near Ginny as well. The twins obviously saw this little fight and took it to themselves to awkwardly try and make the 2 of them cheer up. Unfortunately Hermione wanted to just focus on eating and what looked like reading a book under the table, she didn't want to think about the fight really but she didn't mind grumbling over Healy's obvious lack of understanding of what was happening in their world and that she was probably so far behind in her studies that she belonged with the 1st years. But Healy didn't let Hermione spoil her evening for her. Healy made sure to laugh and talk with the twins as well as Ginny as Healy was determined to help Ginny open up. Ginny smiled through most of the dinner and told Healy of some of things she like to do back at home.

By the time the desserts came around Healy felt she didn't have a trouble in her entire head as she piled her plate up with crème puffs, chocolate cake, blueberry pie, baked apples and 2 different kinds of pudding. At one point Lee had set off what looked like a fire cracker on one the crème puff trays and it went off sending crème and pastries flying off and around the table leaving the masses laughing and patting him on the back. When Healy looked up at the teacher's table she noticed Professor McGonagall shaking her head in disapproval but Dumbledore was laughing heartily and making different toasts around the table. As Healy ate her plate the was constantly being filled by other people, mostly older students who wanted to hear her talk about what food and clothes were like in America, Healy examined the teachers sitting at the table.

She saw Hagrid sitting at the end and he waved at her which she returned by waving her whole arm at him and smiling. She noticed an incredibly small man (midget?) who sat next to a woman wearing glasses and a robe and hat made up of multiple patches, Healy thought they looked interesting. She saw Lockhart yikiddy-yakidding to everyone at the table and boring them or just annoying them with strange stories he found interesting. Near the end Healy saw someone very strange; there was a man with medium length black and greasy hair with a crooked hook nose that pointed down and black, black eyes that reflected nothing in them. Healy stared at him for a minute, there was something hiding at the bottom of him that she couldn't seem to find. Suddenly his eyes shot over and looked straight at her which caused Healy to whip her head around and return her full attention to her plate. For some unknown reason the very look in his eyes caused the deepest fears in Healy to peek out and make her spine tingle up and down. As she looked at her plate she noticed that in the middle of the table what looked like a white mist had risen up and out and began to hover over the table.

When Healy looked up she was met eye to eye with a finely dressed man in what looked like medieval aristocrat wears with a sword at his side and a puffy fluff thingy around his neck. Even though his face was all white you could see the definition in his face and tell he… was (?) in his early 40's and his hair was drawn back and his beard was trimmed to a nice point.

"Welcome 1st years," the floating transparent man said, and in a minute he looked over at Healy. "Oh! And hello our transfer student! It's so nice to have a new culture enter Gryffindor this year. My name is Sir Nicholas and I am the Gryffindor House Ghost."

Healy looked up at him in shock, quickly pulling her napkin up to wipe away the pudding that had dripped out in that shock as she finished swallowing it and looked up at Sir Nicholas. "House Ghost? Does that mean you died while in Gryffindor?"

"Oh no, no, no young lady. I did die but certainly not here! Actually my death has quite an interesting story to it, but I'll get to that later. I was in Gryffindor when I was a young child, much like yourselves, and when I died I guess I felt like I wanted to come back here. A mystery it really is, but I'm happy with my decision! It's not every ghost's luck that they get to land in one of the more interesting houses and meet some of the most interesting people."

"What do you do all day? Do you just go around and talk to living people? Doesn't that get lonely?"

Sir Nicholas gave Healy what could have been a warm smile, if he didn't look so un-alive and un-warmable. "Oh no, I talk to the other ghosts, teachers, sometimes I sit in on classes and other times I try my best to help the other students. But thank you for worrying about me being lonely."

Healy smiled before trying to say 'it was nothing' until another 1st year, one sitting next to Colin, stood up and shouted over to Sir Nicholas:

"Is it true they call you Nearly Headless Nick? Why's that?"

Sir Nicholas gave a look of exasperated grief, although it was probably only a little grief, and looked over at the boy and tugged at the side of his head. A sliding sound was emitted and in an instant Nicholas was holding the side of his head directly against his shoulder and exposed neck from the inside was being shown. If not for a single slice of skin on the neck the man would have been completely headless.

"So cool," Healy said while looking up at Sir Nicholas who, after pulling on his head again, smiled down at her.

"I hope to be seeing you all soon, good bye!" Sir Nicholas floated off with many of the Gryffindors saying good bye and waving while Healy flashed a peace sign (index and middle finger making a V) and said 'later'.

About an hour later many students had had their fill of food. Some were leaning on the tables for rest and support while others were taking their chances at another bite but then quit. Healy had already set down her fork and spoon and was leaning back against Fred as she kept poking Ginny to make sure she didn't pass out on the table.

"Alright students," Dumbledore said as he rose from the table of teachers and looked over his drooping group of students. "It is now again time to close the Welcome Back feast for this year, show yourselves to your dorms and prepare for your first class tomorrow morning. Your house's Perfects will walk you all over to your designated dorms and help each class know where their dorms will be located. I know you are all looking forward to be getting back to school and learning and I assure you, you will want the extra sleep."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled over the students and soon certain students were rising up and shouting at their tables to get up and get going. One of those few was Percy. As Healy stood up she helped Ginny up and supported her head on her shoulder, Ginny was almost half asleep and it was hard for her to keep her eyes open, and the 2 walked with the twins and Lee over out of the room and towards the stair case.

"Is he always that bossy," Healy asked the twins as she watched Percy direct the 1st years and other classes here and there up the stairs and to watch out for changing stair cases as they liked to move sometimes.

"Oh you have no idea," George said as he rolled his eyes over at Fred who agreed by nodding. Once the group had made it over to a portrait of a large, plump, no. Retract that statement. A seriously fat lady in a pink dress with her hair up in a high bun and wearing red lip stick, Percy walked up toward her.

"Password," the portrait spoke. Healy woke up a little for this, completely confused and ready to shoot off questions like a machine gun, but she was far too tired and passed it off as something to bug everyone with tomorrow.

"Devinity chocolate," Percy said. Healy recognized that as a type of candy which reminded her of dessert which reminded her of how tired she was and she took it as a personal insult that Percy would be making her feel even more tired than she already was. Soon the portrait swung back revealing a large hole in the wall with a room on the other side. "Now remember that if you want to get back in here tomorrow."

"Oh I'll remember it," Healy said as she dragged Ginny and herself over to the whole. "I'll also remember how much I hate you right now for making this longer and more insufferable than it has to be."

The twins laughed a bit at that and agreed that Percy enjoyed making things harder than it had to be. The twins helped pull Ginny in from the other side of the wall as Healy helped her up. Once Ginny was in Healy crawled over the hole and inevitably fell over the side onto the hard ground, which surprisingly didn't hurt. As Healy sat up she looked in the room and found it had multiple comfy looking arm chairs around a roaring fire, tables all over with weird looking chess boards and pieces and many cabinets filled with books and figurines. Healy looked over more and saw 2 different stair cases, one on each side.

"Left stair case is for girls," Percy called out which shocked Healy as she had forgotten he even existed for a minute."Right is for boys. Second year's rooms are all the same except now are marked with a letter '2' on their doors. Remember not to fuss about sharing and be in bed in the next hour. That is all; good night and see you all tomorrow morning."

As everyone filled upstairs Healy took Ginny from her brothers, who were trying to us Ginny to sneak over to the girl's dorm, and walked her up the stairs. Inevitably Healy pawned Ginny off to 2 other 1st year girls who agreed to be her roommate and Healy went off to find herself a room. It turned out Healy was only 1 of 4 girls in her class and saw that the other 3, Lavender, Pavarti and Hermione, were all sharing a room. Rather than ask if she could bunk with one of them she searched around the hall, passing the 2's and 3's and eventually the 7's until she found an unmarked door.

Opening it she found a long spiral stair case go up into what looked like a tower. Feeling as her choices were now marked down to sleeping here or on a chair in the common room Healy walked up the stairs to find what was like a door at the top of the stairs.

When she opened it she found herself inside a small room with a large bed, a studying desk, a furnace, a long table in front of the bed and bookshelves encasing the room that were attached to the walls. Across from the bed were 3 giant, gothic styled windows that had old fashioned brass locks on them. There was a shelf built in for both the inside and outside and on the outside a potted ivy plant sat with its leaves barely spilling out of the pot. Healy opened one of the windows and felt the fresh wind come in and bring in the smell of the night and flowers as Healy looked across she could see the Forbidden Forest staring right back at her. Healy stepped back, laid her guitar against the wall and sat on the bed. It was then she also noticed a dresser with a vanity mirror as big as the portrait hole on the right side of the bed next to the door and above her hung a large crystal chandelier that hung by a thin chain. It would have been very scary but Healy became lost in how high the ceiling was as it was actually shaped as a cone above her head. Laying back on the bed Healy noticed it was made up in red bed sheets with a gold colored comforter and many fluffy pillows were situated at the head. When Healy looked over at the right of her she saw all 3 of the trunks siting at the bottom of the bed.

Sitting up Healy kicked off her shoes and put them beside the door while taking off her earrings, bangles and mirror necklace and sat them on the dresser. Healy peeled off her clothes down to her underwear and got into the bed under the covers. She felt the wind brush against her and the warmth of the covers and softness of the pillows seemed to enclose her in a place that almost felt like how plant roots situate themselves in the ground.

"Well then," Healy said with a smile. "I guess I'm home."


	5. Owls and Mandrakes

Healy had a strange dream that night. While in her bed, her mind projected itself out and through the open window, down the tower and into the forest where she came upon a snake. The snake was very long and had a beautiful silver coat of armored scales that each shined bright in the moon light. The snake's long and ruby red tongue flickered out for a moment and then it set itself to slither in its mystical, circular pattern all the way toward the tower. Once it met the tower to its foot the snake had begun to climb the top and then went on with its dance by circling the entire circumference of the tower all the way to the top until it came to the ledge of the middle window. It pushed its head passed the unlocked door and then made its way down, off of the ledge and on to the floor. The silver tongue flickered in and out as it tried to find its way to its destination until it found the dresser and slithered its way on top and located the little mirror necklace. The snake circled the mirror continuously and then stopped and stood its head up and looked at itself in the mirror before resting its head on top of it.  
Healy had turned her head to see the snake do this. The snake neither hissed nor used its tongue to locate Healy but merely stared at her. It had large gold eyes and the slits in the center were a bright baby blue as it looked at and through Healy. Healy stood up on her elbows and looked at the snake on top of her necklace.

"Shoo," Healy said as she picked the snake up carefully by its head in between her thumb and index finger and took the necklace out from under it. Healy was never really afraid of snakes, just careful of them. Pulling the necklace over to her and on her lap, Healy held it in her hand and the snake began to craw over to her and slither up her arm without notice. Once Healy had pulled the mirror over to her the snake had gently wrapped itself around Healy's arm and stared at her. The 2 looked intently at each other, as if trying to see what the other thought.

Healy woke up with a "knock knock" coming from the window. Healy opened her eyes and sat up on her elbows while rubbing her head with her hand.

"A dream?"

The dream played itself in her mind and focused on the snake itself. The snake was calm, it did not seem like it would attack at all. Quite the contrary, it seemed almost as if it wanted to talk! As Healy decided this was indeed a strange dream she turned her head to her dresser. Her heart jumped and gave a hot beat as she saw all of her jewelry in place but her mirror necklace was missing! Franticly she thought of every reason that could explain this until she held her head in her left hand, tired and trying to think, and then felt the feeling of a cold metal chain against her forehead. When she opened her eyes she saw her mirror, reflecting her green eyes and stringy bead head in the mirror.

"Woooh," Healy looked forward and saw that a beautiful, small red owl was sitting on the outside ledge and looking right at Healy.

"Hi there," Healy called over. Slipping the necklace over her neck Healy slid out of bed and touched her bare feet the cold wooden floors and felt the cool chill of the room. She instantly regretted not taking the extra time to change at least into a long shirt before going to bed. Walking over to the window Healy opened it all the way; the wind rushed in with the smell of morning dew and leaves from the trees and flowers from the outside. The air had a slight chill to it but it was fresh and nice none the less. The owl hoped in, inviting itself along with the cool breeze, and looked up at Healy. Its face had patterns of reddish brown circles and its wings were of pure white, the face was small with brown-gold eyes and the beak was pointed downwards; it almost looked like a spy for the secretive look it has. As Healy studied the small, almost fragile body of the little creature she noticed it had a pocket watch around its neck.

"Now what would an owl need with a watch?" Healy tilted the watch face towards her and saw that it was 6:59 am on the watch. It was a small, golden pocket watch that had the design of 2 peacocks on the back and roman numerals were printed all around. Once Healy got the time, the owl hopped up on to her shoulder and snuggled its head against Healy's like a cat. Healy giggled as its feathers tickled her face and she turned her head to the little guy. "Well aren't you a silly one?"

The owl gave a little hoot and popped off her shoulder and flew up on the chandelier. When Healy looked up at it the owl had settled itself and gone into what looked like a little nap.

"Alright then," Healy said as she looked up at the owl that now had a very peaceful look on its face. "I now have a roommate."

To Healy having an animal for a roommate was far more interesting and comfortable than another girl. Taking the time to go over to her trunks Healy opened the smallest one and took out a green and black striped notebook, the black stripes came from Healy coloring in stripes with a sharpie marker(I do not own sharpie rights or funds so don't sue me!), which Healy used for a dream jornal. Healy had only turned into a dream journal because she had a difficult time sitting down and writing about her day, no matter how interesting it was, and decided that since she usually only had a few dreams worth writing about every now and then that this was the best alternative.

After writing down her dream, date on it as well, she put the journal down on the bedside table and fumbled around in the light blue trunk which contained her clothes. She pushed aside all sorts of possibilities until she pulled out a long, black ARMY shirt given to her by her dad and a pair of cut-off shorts used for a gym class she had last year. It was a sloppy ensemble but with it being so early and cold she didn't quite care. Healy quickly dressed herself, pulling the mirror over the shirt, and walked out of the room and down the circular stairs where she left out of the door separating her room from the hallway. There was nothing like realizing you had such a special and strange room as Healy did, and upon remembering she smiled widely as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Once Healy stepped out onto the hallway she instantly realized what her mission was this early in the morning: Find the bathroom. Healy mentally slapped herself for not asking or remembering where the bathrooms were, given that it's one of the most important rooms in a person's life next to the kitchen and library. Although the task seemed simple enough the problem was that the hallway had so many doors with numbers on them she couldn't find where the bathroom was, and she knew asking someone this early in the morning was out of the question. Although the idea of annoying either Fred and George or Percy sounded like fun, it would probably not end well at all... As Healy walked along she began looking at the pictures on the wall, all of which were actually living! It was so strange and incredible that you would almost want to stop at each and everyone of them and get to know them all, Healy actually thought of asking a few of them where the bathroom was. But because it was morning it was to tell that most of the different portraits and people in the paintings were either napping against their shoulders or looking at Healy in either annoyance from being woken up or disapproval for what she was wearing. At one moment an old woman wearing what looked like chicken feathers tied up into her bun began bickering at Healy for being awake so early and for wearing such skimpy night clothes.

"Why on my word, young people today! In my time a woman caught like that in her own room would be punished! I mean here you are, in one of the finest schools in the world, and you're running around wearing that? Shameless!"

After a minute of this Healy rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to flick the painting off, and turned away; muttering about that 'it's one thing to be lectured by my family and another to be lectured by a painting'. It was only after her first step though that Healy had bumped directly into something soft that sent both of them tumbling back. Both she and the other fell back and onto the floor behind where they stood so they were sitting at eye level. After rubbing her head Healy looked in front of her and saw a boy with black hair wearing round and thick rimmed glasses doing the same. He was about Healy's height and had a thin scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead, he looked like he had just gotten up.

When he looked up at Healy they both noticed they had green eyes and Healy noticed that he wore a long nightgown, something very unusual for a boy to be wearing Healy thought. They then noticed that one was a boy and the other a girl and quickly picked themselves up, it being kind of embarrassing to push someone down and not know who they are.

"Sorry," Healy said as she stood up and watched the boy get up. "I didn't mean ta run into you! I wasn't looking where I was goin' I guess."

"Oh," He started as the boy fixed his glasses on his face. "It's all right! I wasn't looking where I was going really either. Umm, what are you doing on the boy's side of the dormitory?"

"I'm on the boy's side?" Healy looked embarrassed by this and slapped herself on the face with her palm on sighed. "Agh! Lookin' for the bathroom in this crazy place is gonna give me heart attack!"

The boy blushed and laughed a bit, amused by Healy's energy for so early in the morning. It seemed he was still fairly tired and seeing someone so energetic and honest was kind of funny.

"Sometimes things move around and change in the castle, but the bathrooms in here are always where they're supposed to be. I can show you where they are if you want." The boy paused for a minute but then his speech became frantic and quick. "I mean, I was just going there too! So it's no trouble!"

Healy smiled and nodded her head. "Yeah, thanks!"

The 2 walked silently down the steps that lead to the common room with the fire place, whose fire was still crackling, and multiple comfy chairs placed around it. Healy felt a little awkward in the silence but thought against actually talking to him; after all, she had no idea who he was. They then walked along past the fire place and under an arch and found the 2 bathrooms, one for girls and the other for boys.

"Thank you," Healy shouted as she went into the bathroom. It was a quick trip followed by washing her hands and she stepped out the exact moment he did.

"Ha," Healy laughed as she saw the boy again, who seemed either embarrassed at seeing her come out of the girls room or him coming out of the boy's. Healy just thought the timing was perfect. "Nice ta see ya again!"

"Yeah," The boy said with a light laugh. He was obviously embarrassed; whether it was seeing Healy come out of the girl's bathroom or him coming out of the guy's no one can tell. Healy pulled out her hand in front of him and smiled while looking straight into his green eyes.

"Hi, I'm Healy."

"Harry," the boy said as he lightly gripped Healy's hand and smiled up at her. "Harry Potter."

"That's weird. I swear I've heard that name before." Healy looked up and pondered the name, trying to see if she could pull it out from anywhere; but she seemed to be getting no where quickly.

"You probably have." The boy looked away with an embarrassed sort of look.

"Well, Harry is probably a pretty common name an' all." Healy said with a shrug, giving up on trying to figure it out. It was too early. "It's nice meeting you Harry."

"You too, Healy." Harry looked back up at Healy and he had a happier smile on. This was the first time he didn't have someone freaking out over who he was, and it was much more relaxing to have someone treat him normally than compared to last year. "Are you a 1st year?"

"Nope, 2nd!"

"Really? I don't remember you from last year."

"I wasn't here then, I was back home. But I'm here now!"

"Oh," Harry let go of her hand and studied Healy. "That's sort of… strange."

"I'm a very strange person." Healy said with a smile that caused Harry to laugh lightly again.

"If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?"

"Why ya wanna know?" Healy sang a bit as she looked at Harry. She was getting tired of constantly being asked that but found it that Harry seemed nice to talk to.

"Well you have this accent and-"

"Ha! I keep thinking you people have the accent!" Healy laughed for a minute and looked back at Harry. "I'm from America, and before this place I was at just a regular, public middle school."

"Oh," Harry looked a bit surprised at that. "So YOU'RE the girl everyone's talking about!"

"People are talking about me? Gossip." Healy made a face at the word as if she had tasted something rotten. She had been a topic of rumors and teasing back at home so she wasn't looking forward to what would happen here. Her worst fears revolved around not being able to do magic or being too 'normal'. "Is it at least any good? Anything juicy?"

"Oh no! Nothing like that!" Harry put his hands up in defense at this, thinking he might have insulted her. "It's just, some of the guys in our class were talking about this new student who came from America and all that and I just didn't realize it was you! You're a bit different then how they described you."

"And how did they describe me?" Healy crossed her arms over her chest but looked intrigued with a smile on her face. This was interesting.

"Nothing bad! Really! They just said you looked really foreign; like some sort of wanderer or like a traveling musician. They kept saying you had this roll when you talked like you were singing and that your hair was pulled back and wavy and you had green eyes."

At the hair comment Healy fumbled in her hair and found that it was a puffy mass of curls and laughed. She couldn't believe she had actually let someone see her like this and not even realize it.

"That's awesome! I sound pretty cool!"

Harry smiled a bit at Healy's reaction. He was sure she was going to be mad or start arguing but instead she seemed to be enjoying it. Looking back on how the others described her though, Harry was sure they had missed something: She's completely nuts. But in a good way.

"Well, I'm glad you're not angry."

"Aw, I was just messin' with ya Harry. Now, maybe it's time we both got dressed."

"That's probably a good idea."

Harry and Healy walked back to the common rooms, up the stairs and right before they parted Healy turned around.

"Oh, I forgot to ask!" Healy pointed her finger at Harry's gown. "Any particular reason you have that on?"

Harry blushed and tried to explain but Healy laughed and waved her hand while saying it was fine. They both left and once Healy found her unmarked door she opened it and walked up the stairs to her own room. Healy was surprised to see how the tunnel was surprisingly well lit and insulated at the same time, it was very nice. She rolled the though of Harry around in her head a bit and came to the conclusion that he seemed like a really nice guy. As soon as she stepped into her room she was greeted by the little owl fluttering around the room, dropping itself here and there and looking around. Healy watched it for a moment and then giggled at how active and alive it was. It didn't seem panicked or mad, just over energetic and ready to go back outside.

"You probably want out now don't cha?" Healy said as she walked over to the window and opened it all the way. The little owl hopped on her shoulder, rubbed his head against hers a final time and then spread its long wings and flew out the window and down into the Forbidden Forest. Healy watched this until the bird was out of sight, hoping that it would be okay and maybe come back every now and then. Then she turned around to the room, thinking about what she might wear, and found a small brown bag sitting on her bed.

Brushing it off as like how the trunks got there Healy sat on the bed and opened the bag to find a long, green plaid skirt, white button down shirt and a vest with an embroidered crest of a lion on it. Healy looked at the ensemble and made the same sour looking face she had earlier and dropped the clothes and walked over to her own wardrobe. It looked like a rejected Catholic school uniform from the 50's.

"Screw a uniform, I'm dressin' like me." Healy said indigently as she walked over to her trunks. Again: she found doing something everyone else did annoying and boring.

Healy had pulled out a red plaid skirt that went just above the knees, long sleeved black shirt with a swoop neckline, and long rainbow socks. Healy put them on and finished it off by putting on her favorite blue and yellow Nikes to create such a cute, tacky look. With that she also put on a big and decorated cross (given to her by Devina who bought when she was going through a "Nuevo Cristiano" phase) with lots of pink and blue rhinestones. Healy turned around and looked at herself and laughed at the reflection; if the outfit made her smile then it passed the test. After this Healy pulled on the sweater with the lion crest, which she figured meant that she was in Gryffindor, and pulled out her robe and the bag that was filled with all the books and supplies Healy would need. Devina had helped Healy enchant her bag so that it could carry 4 times the things that a regular bag that size, which would come in handy given all the things Healy like to carry around with her. As Healy slipped on the robes Healy began to hear people moving downstairs.

Taking that as a sign to get out, Healy walked out of her room, down the stairs and into the hallway to see people walking back and forth around getting ready. Many were girls going here and there and brushing their hair or pulling on their robes. Healy tried to walk past them carefully but had to dodge every other girl that came past her. It was a lot like a game of 'Frogger' except with more talking and distractions. After shuffling in between each of them in what was like a weird sort of mating dance that used a lot of spins and diagonal turns, Healy finally made it into the common rooms where she placed herself down in a chair by the still roaring fire. Dodging girls in a crowded hallway is tough! Healy sank into the chair for a minute and tried to hush the sound of busy people hurrying in their rooms and in the hallways, at the moment as she heard these loud sounds Healy began to feel her stomach begin to talk as well. Healy was hungry, strange because after last night's feast she was sure she would never be hungry again, or at least not for a few days. It was fairly empty in the common rooms which gave Healy a moment to ponder this and that while relaxing and waiting to see what happened next.

As Healy sat up to think about what was going on 2 boys had appeared and sat in chairs right beside hers. When Healy looked over to see them she immediately recognized Harry, fully clothed with his glasses and a bag, and a tall and skinny boy with red hair who looked almost exactly like George and Fred.

"Harry," Healy said as she leaned over and greeted Harry with a smile. "That's you, right?"

"Oh," Harry turned over and saw Healy. He looked fairly surprised but then happy and smiled at her. "Yeah, nice to see you again."

"Same here! So, wow, everyone here is so busy in the mornings. Is it like this all the time?"

"You have no idea." Harry turned to the boy beside him and then gestured his arm over to Healy. "Oh, sorry about this. Healy, this is my bestfriend Ron Weasly. Ron, this is Healy."

Ron looked a little confused at first, thinking Harry was just introducing him to some random girl, until Harry nudged his shoulder, leaned over and whispered: "You know, the girl everyone's been talking about."

Ron looked over at Healy with wide eyes at that comment; apparently Ron had hassled Neville and Dean for as much information on this foreign girl as he could get. To him and everyone else that was some of the biggest news of the night, almost bigger than Harry and Ron and a flying car! Ron blushed a little and got up out of his seat to walk over to Healy. Once he was in front of her he held out his hand to her, slightly awkward yet excited.

"I'm Ron Weasly," Ron said a little timidly. Talking to a foreigner seemed strange and a bit frightening to him.

"The name's Healy," Healy said as she grabbed Ron's hand and gave it a shake of the wrist. "Hey! I could swear on my own faith that you've got a sister and some twin brothers that I've met!"

"Well you'd be right, my lady," the voice of Fred said as he leaned over the left side of the chair and whispered into Healy's ear. George soon followed in.

"And your prize is knowing that the Weasly family is being presented just for you," George whispered on the right, obviously trying to copy his brother.

Healy yelped loudly and then jumped out of her seat and spinned around to see the twins laughing at her. To them it was both funny and adorable, to Healy it was scary and funny too. Ginny stood behind her brothers and seemed to be catching as many stray looks at Harry as possible.

"You should have seen the look on your face," Fred said in between hard breaths as he walked around over to his brother.

"Priceless," George said as he wiped a stray tear from his eyes from laughing so hard. Healy put on a pout face as she looked at the 2 of them.

"Don't tell me you guys met her before I did," Ron said as he looked at his brothers. After Fred and George had stopped their giggling, they through an arm over each other's shoulder and smiled at Ron.

"So sorry about that Ronald," Fred said as he smiled at his younger brother who, even though he was a full 5 inches over Healy and 3 inches over Harry, was around 10 inches shorter than his brothers.

"We would have told you about our new adoption," George said after Fred. The 2 then went in union:

"But SOMEBODY had to crash dad's car into the only tree in Hogwarts that likes to hit others!"

"You drove a car here," Healy asked as she looked excitedly at Ron, twisting her entire body around to see him better. "And then crashed it? Awesome!"

Ron blushed and turned his head down and rubbed the back of his head with his arm while a stray smile crept up on to his face.

"Actually," Harry said as he walked over to Ron, trying to get him to speak up more. "We flew here in the car. Ron's dad here enchanted it so it would fly."

"You flew here!? A flying car at that… That is so awesome! Why can't the rest of us fly here?"

"'Cause Flinch would have a fit," Fred said as he went over and sat in the chair nearest to Harry. "So what happened to the 2 of you anyway, Harry? First thing we know is that you're running to get through the portal with the rest of us, and the next thing we hear from McGonagall you 2 are in the dungeons and in trouble for flying a car to get here."

"And straight into the Whomping Willow too," George said excitedly and making a crashing gesture with his fists as he leaned against the chair Fred was sitting in. A wide grin on his face as he looked off into the distance, imaging what it would of been like. "I tell you, I'd of loved to see that! Nasty old tree that is. Wouldn't of minded having the car here now though, mum's gonna be murderous when she finds out what's happened."

"No doubt." Fred smiled evilly over at Ron as he said this, obviously enjoying the idea of their mother screaming and possibly torturing their younger brother. Ron let out a low moan and cradled his head in between his hands at the sound of this.

"Once mum gets through with me," Ron said with his face still hidden. "There won't BE anything left for Flinch to torture. I'm dead."

"Don't say that," Harry said as he patted Ron's back, looking sad and half as desperate as Ron. "If you say that then I'm going to be dead too."

"No you won't," Ron said as he uncovered his face and looked straight at Harry. "Mum'll forgive you in an instant; heck, she'll probably say I corrupted you into stealing the car with me!"

"I think it would be safer to say that your 2 older brothers here corrupted you into doing that," Healy said as she looked at Ron with a light smile while pointing over at Fred and George. Both Ron and Harry laughed at this making the mood seem a bit lighter. It became even lighter when both the twins gave a mock gasp causing the trio to look over at them and see they both had exaggerated looks of hurt.

"Why how could you think we would do such a thing," George said and then dramatically pointed his nose up to the celling and a hand over his eyes, pretending to be hurt.

"Corrupt our own brother," Fred started as he clutched his chest and made a face that looked as if he were going to break out into tears at any moment. "Have him turn into a trouble maker and be the talk of the whole school. Giving the title of 'Extraordinary Mad Men' and 'Incredible Stunt and Thrill Seekers' to the Weasly family? For shame!"

The twins then broke into laughter at this and gave the entire group a good laugh. After a while Healy waved over to Ginny who smiled and began to wave back but then hid behind her brothers again.

"Don't worry about her," Ron said after he saw Ginny hide. "She's super shy; wouldn't barely even look at Harry the entire time he was over at our house during the summer."

"Oh," Healy said as she looked over at Harry. "Are you guy's family friends or childhood friends or something?"

"Well," Harry rubbed the back of his head and gave a look of deep thought. "Not exactly. I mean, I'm friends with the Weasly's but my family really isn't. Actually, my family isn't really friendly with anything that has to do anything with magick."

"Yeah," Ron said as he nodded his head at the statement. "The people he lives with are a bunch of high strung muggles who hate anything that has to do with magick. Won't even believe in it!"

"Really," Healy gave a look of disbelief at what Ron said. "They don't believe in Magick even after Harry here's been living with them?"

"They practically locked him up all summer! He was like a prisoner!"

"No way!" Healy looked straight at Harry in horror at this. "You should call the police or child protective services! I mean those people should go to jail for that!"

"It's alright," Harry said as he backed up but then smiled, happy someone was concerned but freaked by the suggestions Healy gave him. "Really, after what Fred, George and Ron did here for me, I think they'll learn to treat me better."

"Really? What 'cha guys do?" Healy asked early as she looked over at the twins.

The twins and Ron smiled to each other and then looked at Healy.

"Let's just say," Fred said and looked up at George to finish.

"That now those muggles will learn that iron bars can't stop the Weaslys!"

Healy and Harry laughed at this but then Healy turned over and looked at Ron.

"Say," she started. "What's a 'muggle'? All this time you've been sayin' "muggle this and muggle that", is that some sort of little creature like a Goblin or somethin'?"

"A 'little goblin'," Ron said in a shocked voice. His eyes were bulging a bit and he had a look that sort of translated to: 'are you crazy or something?'

"What he means to say is," Harry said as he pushed Ron to the side and stepped up. "That a 'muggle' is a basically someone who isn't magickal. They can't do magick and aren't in the magick world."

"Oh," Healy said surprised. "I've been wondering that for a while since the term's dropped so much. But it's so… harsh. Kind of rude too. Why not just say 'non-magick people'?"

"Muggle's easier I suppose."

Healy nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders but she still didn't like the word. It sounded a lot like an insult to her. At that both the twins came around and each one wrapped one of their arms over one of her shoulders.

"Well since you must be from a muggle family and all that," the one on the left said cheerfully.

"You can now consider yourself a part of the full blooded wizarding Weasly family," right said finished with a smile.

"What do you mean by that?" Ron asked as he looked at his brothers curiously. Both him and Harry gave odd looks to the twins, never really understanding their thought process; as if anyone ever could.

"We decided to adopt her," the 2 said simultaneously with full smiles.

"Or marry her," the one on the right said with a look of contemplation.

"Can't quite decide, given that we don't really want to share her," the one on the left said as he smiled.

Healy knew the 2 of them were joking and with a smile she ducked out of their embrace and turned around and looked at them.

"On the left is George and on the right is Fred," Healy said as she looked at the 2. Both of them shook their heads and gave a 'tsk, tsk' sort of sound at this.

"So sorry love," George, on the right, said and he pulled his arms across his chest with Fred following in the same fashion.

"Wrong again I'm afraid."

"Darn it," Healy said while snapping her fingers at this; a habit she usually did when something upset her. Healy then looked over at Ginny for advice. "What's one way to tell them apart?"

Ginny blushed a bit but then finally came out from behind the chair and looked at Healy while blocking her view from Harry and Ron.

"Well," she began in her barely audible voice as her head was twisted downwards. "Fred usually gets up earlier than George does; you can hear them at home when Fred wakes up George."

She didn't want to say that they usually also woke everyone else up by being obnoxious so she kept her mouth shut on that part.

"Huh," Healy said as she crossed her own arms over her chest and rested her head on one of her hands to think. "So one day I'm gonna have to sneak into the boy's dorm room and wait to see Fred wake George… Hmmm, tempting but I don't think that would work."

"Too bad," George said with a grin as he looked at Healy.

"We could always just sneak you in," Fred suggested.

"Yeah!" George agreed animatedly. "We can hide her under the bed and claim she's our project for Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

"Or we could hide her under our clothes and just say she's doing our laundry if someone finds her!"

"Or," Healy through in quickly. "You can hide me in one of your trunks and say I'm your personal maid!"

"Great idea!" George said while pointing at Healy. "I've always wanted someone to clean up my side of the room for me."

"Scrub our shoes," Fred said while listing the demands off his fingers. "Do our laundry, hide our bad marks."

"Clean up the dungbombs, hide the sweets, make sure none of the imps jump out of their boxes."

"You know what, why don't you just move in! I'm sure George or I could spare some extra room in one of the beds!"

Healy cracked a smile and tried to keep from laughing at Fred's suggestion.

"I feel so loved," Healy said while laughing lightly.

"Hang on," George interrupted seriously. "Then who get's to sleep beside her?"

"We can go off in rounds!" Fred exclaimed seriously. They then turned to Healy and each grabbed a shoulder while smiling.

"So when are you moving in?" They asked at the same time.

"What are the2 of you saying," Percy shouted. He was walking over to the group while wearing his robes, spiff and clean with the Prefect badge the center of attention. "Under no circumstance are girls allowed in the boy's side of the dorms! Don't go putting such ideas in Healy's head. And you 2," Percy said as he directed his attention on Harry and Ron who had jumped out of their skins a bit. "I can't believe what I'm hearing! You stole dad's car just to get here and then crashed it!? Didn't you think mum and dad could send a letter over to the school and it would all be sorted out? By Merlin's Beard! Now everyone in the school is going to associate me with this mess!"

Harry, Ron, Healy and the twins looked at each other and all were obviously trying to hold on from laughing as Percy panicked. He just seemed so animated when he was angry that he made the most incredible faces, each one more extreme and a little more red than the other. Just as Percy had finished his rant Healy saw the long and frizzy head of Hermione walk over to the group and a stride. Healy had given a deep sigh at this, Hermione seemed very unpleasant and she didn't look forward to being criticized again. But Healy was wrong, Hermione came over and stopped in front of Ron and Harry and had a look of frantic worry on her face. She also seemed unfazed by Percy's rant which Healy gave a little amount of respect toward her.

"I can't believe you 2," Hermione nearly shouted as she looked at them, a look of shock and distress wrapped on her face. "I was so worried that I hardly got any sleep last night! You 2 could have been killed! Your just so lucky Dumbledore or Snape didn't expel you!"

"Not by not trying he didn't," Ron started with an angry look on his face. "Snape tried just to expel us before Dumbledore came in and said it was alright! I mean the worst thing that happened was that we crashed and lost the car."

"Thank goodness for that!" Hermione nearly shouted as she looked up and then back at Ron and Harry. "You 2 obviously don't need to be driving any sort of enchanted vehicle and now you don't have the option to."

Healy laughed a bit at that; okay, so the girl has a point. Hermione looked at the 2 as if she was a teacher and in a moment she caught Healy's eyes and then directed a sour and mad face at her.

"And what are you doing here," Hermione questioned in the same, stern voice to Healy. Healy looked at Hermione and crossed her arms and had her hips pointed out in an angle at this.

"I'm talking to people," Healy said as she looked directly at Hermione. "I'm at least allowed to do that. Or am I too stupid to do that too?"

"I didn't call you stupid," Hermione said as her look softened a bit but her tone was very defensive.

"Could of fooled me."

Both Ron and Harry looked more scared than confused about what was happening. To them Hermione was a firecracker who lived to argue and Healy, someone they barely knew but figured was just as passionate as Hermione, seemed to be challenging her. Hermione had looked away but kept the same frown on her face while Healy's lips began to screw up to one side. A few other Gryffindores had seen this and were hurrying away, avoiding the idea of a screaming fit. Probably for the best, because the group of 8 there could feel a heavy tension thickening between them.

"Okay then," Fred said, exaggerating the 'okay', as he grabbed Healy's shoulders and tried to lighten the mood. "Well I'm hungry. How about you George?"

"Incredibly hungry," George said while also trying to lighten the mood by clapping his hands together. "Starving in fact! How about we all make our way to the Great Hall and try not to kill each other on the way down. Sound's good, right?"

"Food," Healy said as she immediately toned into the word and smiled. "Please! I must be fed now!"

The twins laughed at this as they began walking towards that portrait hole. Harry and Ron followed beside Healy while Hermione followed behind with Ginny. The group set off out of the portrait hole and down the main set of stairs to the big room that was used for sorting the previous night and sat beside Lee Jordan who was there before them. Healy was still amazed at just how big the castle was; she could fit her entire house and possibly her entire city in it and there'd be enough room for a Disney Land! As they walked in Healy couldn't help but stare at the tables and each person on them; agains, the idea of these people being like her was just incredible. On the tables were eggs, bacon, toast, assortments of jams and fruits, plain oatmeal and all sorts of juices that were all set up for breakfast. Healy sat in between Harry and Fred and pilled on eggs and bacon on her plate and began looking up and down the table.

"Do they have any biscuits here," Healy said while looking left and right down the table at all the many people sitting, eating and talking. "Or any gravy? That'd be cool; ketchup would be good if they don't have any."

Ron and Harry looked over at Healy with a curious look on their faces.

"You eat gravy with breakfast," Ron asked in a very weird-ed-out sort of tone as he looked at Healy. Healy blushed slightly and looked away, she guessed this was one of the culture gaps that was bound to happen; trying to forget the subject as she reached for the pitcher of orange juice. As the tables began to fill up and more students came in the entire hall began to get livelier. Dean, Neville and Flinch had made their way over to Harry and Ron and sat across from them; begging them for more details on what had happened. Ron gladly gave the story and even gave exaggerated movements to his words; one could also see how Ron exaggerated some of the story. Just as he was telling about how a heard of birds the size of a house had come out, Neville had turned his head and directed his attention at Healy.

"Good morning," Neville said in a low tone of voice but with a light smile.

"Mornin'," Healy replied cheerfully after swallowing a mouthful of eggs and then going in for a slice of bacon.

"So you're really going to be in our classes this year?"

"I hope so."

"What do you mean you hope so," Hermione asked; Hermione had been eating her breakfast while reading a book under the table and half listening to Ron's tale while rolling her eyes. "Don't you mean you know for a fact you'll be having classes with the rest of us?"

Healy hadn't been enjoying Hermione's soft criticism of her and wasn't appreciating being mocked for not knowing everything. In fact, she didn't want to say she was going to class yet because she was waiting to be told herself. She was wondering if she was going to be in some sort of class for foreigners or not and didn't want to jump to any conclusions.

"I don't know," Healy said as she took another fork full of food and tried to block Hermione out of her eye sight and head.

"What exactly do you know then?" Hermione had looked over her book and stared at Healy with a look of strict, rigid walls that didn't appreciate un-solid ground. "All this time you've been here, you've been sorted and everything and Professor McGonagall said you'd be in our classes; what exactly do you know what's going to happen?"

Healy slammed her fist on the table, spilling her and Harry's goblets of juice on the table and shaking everything around it. The sound echoed a bit through the hall and a few other people at other tables looked over to see what had happened. Most of the Gryffindores had stopped talking and turned to see what was happening; Dean, Flinch, Neville and Ron looking very confused while Ginny and Harry looked scared. At first Healy was ready to scream something at her, she was biting her bottom lip and trying not to let anything she didn't want to say slip out. Healy looked up at Hermione, her face in an emotionless order, and kept her tone of voice simple and direct.

"I know I don't like snobs," Healy said. "Like you."

Healy got up and walked away from the table and out of the Great Hall, trying to clear her head as what had just happened had made the blood in her head start to pound in her ears. She had been insulted and called stupid before; but the way Hermione was talking to her, the passive-aggressive-ness, had drove Healy over the edge. Healy didn't deal well with people who only half insulted her; she liked the full picture as it didn't haunt her all day by trying to sort out what it meant. Healy decided to walk around the hall for a while until she felt calmer. It was a large hallway that was nicely lit with some windows that let in the sun shine and pictures of the forrest. The moments of somewhat quiet that were only interrupted by the sounds of footsteps and muffled conversations helped Healy cool off and relax.

As she walked down Healy waved and said 'good morning' to the different students that walked by and looked at and even spoke to the different paintings. It was a very strange and funny thing, talking to pictures. Healy used to think all pictures would talk about is themselves but most of them seemed very interesting. Some of the paintings were of sceneries from different places or castles from faraway lands, but mostly they were portraits. As she walked by the painting did interest and amuse her until she found one that absolutely mesmerized her. Healy had stopped to see a painting of a large rose garden in front of what looked like an Italian styled mansion, the stones in the mansion were all freshly cut and put together and all the roses glittered of different colors and types. With a closer look Healy saw it was one of the few paintings that didn't move or change its scene, the entire canvas was in one un-moving place and was an oil painting, but it looked more real and spectacular than any of the others. Looking at the picture was very calming and also brought a sense of wonder at the immaculate detail it had in every section.

"Beautiful picture isn't it," a voice from behind Healy said in an upbeat tone. Healy yelped lightly and spun around to be face to face, well beard, to Dumbledore himself. He was wearing long purple robes that shone with small stars imprinted around them and his beard has still the color of freshly fallen snow. "One of my favorites here! You know who painted this picture don't you?"

Healy began to shake her head but then said "no" as she knew it was rude to not answer in speech.

"It was Montgomery Zummary!"

"No way," Healy said a little too loudly but then backed up and looked up at Dumbledore. "I knew he painted but, I've never seen any of his pieces before."

"Yes, yes that's true" He said sadly and regretfully. Dumbledore looked back up at the painting and gazed at it with a look of both guilt yet hopefulness. "After the trial they were either confiscated by the court or given to the people he had signed them over or sold them to."

Dumbledore stepped closer to the picture and smiled as though he were looking at an old friend. Everything about Dumbledore was relaxing; Healy had actually felt like time was going a little slower as he talked in his deep, hum of a voice.

"Montgomery loved to pain; it was his major passion you know. When he was a student here, for a very short time, he would always be drawing or painting or planning another painting; almost all of his teachers complained about it. We have a few of his paintings in here that he did both as a student and after he left. This one is one of his last, before he was sent to Azkaban."

"What's Azkaban?"

"It's where Montgomery is now, he was sent there after his trail." Dumbledore's smile had faded as he said that, yet he still looked at the picture. "We all said that the sentence was too harsh, he was only a thief. Yes, a grand thief but he had never hurt anyone; even the people he stole from didn't suffer anything but hurt pride. But, alas, we couldn't win that case. The prosecuters demanded the sentence under... special circumstances. But since not all of them could be proven he was given the lightest of those charges; which were still too harsh. He's in the lowest security cell there is and is fed twice a day, even given mail privileges when the letters go through the Ministry of Magic."

"But he's still in jail." Healy said as she turned her head down to the floor. Healy had never met Montgomery before, but not a day went by that she didn't think or imagine about him. She thought of what he looked like or sounded like, Devina didn't have any pictures of him nor did she like talking about him and Healy's curiosity could never be settled. When Healy thought of that painting she couldn't dream that a person who could make something so beautiful could be so horrible, in fact she couldn't see Montgomery as being horrible at all. He had agreed to be her benefactor after all, with out knowing who she was or giving any demands in return. Healy felt Dumbledore wrap a long, cloaked arm over her shoulders and pat the side of her arm.

"One day my child," Dumbledore said, his smile back and big as ever with his eyes twinkling behind his moon rimmed glasses. "You will see him, and I'm sure the 2 of you will be very happy."

Healy smiled at this, even though the thought sounded very unlikely, when Dumbledore said it it sounded like it had to come true.

"Now then," Dumbledore said in a pompous voice as he rubbed her arm a final time and then took it away. "Why are you here and not in the Great Hall? Why I'm certain you would have all sorts of people talking your ears off and asking questions to know you!"

Healy looked down at this before answering.

"I'm not good at talking to other people… Some of them are confused about why I'm even here."

"Are you sure they are confused of you being here, or that you're confused about why you're here?"

"Of course I know why I'm here!" Healy said quickly in her defense. "I'm here ta learn about magick and how to use it the right way!"

"Yes, but what exactly are you, Healy, the 12 year old girl and not the magician; do you know what you're doing here?"

Healy looked up at Dumbledore but her mind was searching the ends of the universe with nothing to grasp. It was a question she hadn't pondered before, and something she wasn't sure she had an answer for.

"I… don't really know…"

Healy felt depressed at this discovery, the idea of just going somewhere for no reason and getting mad at others for pointing it out was like a slap to the back of her head. Healy wallowed in a little self-loathing but then Dumbledore put his hand on top of her head and smiled at her.

"We never know what we want to do or what exactly we are doing in the beginning. It's always very confusing and very hard at the start; but once you see what it's like, once you've got the passion for it in you, then you'll know why you're here."

Healy smiled up at Dumbledore and he smiled down at her, to her Dumbledore was like a wise old grandfather that came on Christmas and answered all your questions. True, they were riddle like in nature but they just seemed to make so much sense. They walked to the front opening of the Great Hall together and Dumbledore nudged his head forward to encourage Healy to go back. Healy was a little shy to go back in there again, after causing such an embarrassing commotion; but when she turned around she saw Dumbledore nod his head for her to continue and she did. Straightening her back and her chin up Healy walked back to her table and back to her seat beside Harry who was looking a little worried up at her.

"You all right," Harry asked as Healy sat down.

"Yeah," Healy said casually. As if Harry were asking for the weather. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Healy continued to chat with Neville and Harry; to Healy's surprise Neville was more nervous and timid than he seemed to be last night. The morning was festive as well, Fred and George did some sort of catching game were they threw bread rolls from under and across the table to see if they could land them on either someone's plate or in one or the other's hands. The game soon got fairly complicated with different and silly rules and then gained a points system, Lee was referring and announcing the whole game the entire time; it's trusty to say that Healy and the others were having a heck of a time while this happened. And Neville was hit in the head with the bread only twice!

Soon Professor McGonagall had come in the hall, stared at the twins who then scrambled back to their seats and acted like they were innocently minding their own business (but showed they obviously were not), and began passing out papers to each student. When Healy had taken her paper she noticed that at first it was blank but then, in less than a second, ink had appeared in the center and then spread out revealing her school schedule for the week.

"Oh blast it," Ron said out loud as he looked down at his schedule. Harry had given a slight sigh and Healy twisted her head over to them.

"What's up," Healy asked as she looked over at Ron while chewing a piece of bacon.

"We've got double potions with the Slytherines this year again!"

"You know what that means," Harry growled under his breath after hearing this.

"Snakes?" Healy said absent mindedly. Both of the twins and Lee Jordan broke out into laughter at this, Fred had covered his head in between his arms on the table and George and Lee were proceeding to bang their fists on the table.

"Worse," Ron muttered at this but then spoke up. "Snape and his favoritism."

"Don't forget Malfoy," Harry said in an unpleasant tone. "Ugh. Malfoy…"

"Just ignore him you 2," Hermione said as the 2 of them groaned. "He won't bother the 2 of you as long as you ignore him."

"That didn't work so well with you snob," Healy thought to herself as Hermione said that but then she directed her attention to Harry. "Let me see your schedule."

Harry handed Healy his schedule, not expecting much out of it, and Healy looked it top from bottom and was delighted in what she saw.

"Wahoo!" Healy shouted as she saw this causing Neville to choke a bit on with oatmeal he had been eating and Ron to stop gripping.

"What is it," Harry asked as he studied Healy, surprised and confused to see her randomly shouting. He also scooted back a little, given that he was in direct ear shot.

"We got all the same classes together!" Healy said as she pointed at the 2 schedules. "All 2nd years have got the same classes together, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Wahoo!" Healy said this while swinging her arms up in the air to show her excitement. Neville, Harry and Ron smiled and laughed at this, equally excited while Hermione acted as if she didn't notice anything. "Oh yeah, what is and where's our first class?"

Harry bent down over one of the schedules to look.

"Umm," Harry started. "Herbology, in Greenhouse 3. That's outside and out in the court yard."

"Wahoo! We get to do gardening! And go outside! Things are turnin' out great today!"

"Very spirited aren't you," George said as he looked and giggled at Healy's obvious enthusiasm.

"What's so great about Herbology," Ron asked as he looked at his schedule. He sounded more bored and weary at the idea of going outside in the morning to take care of plants and stand all class than anything else. "We don't really even learn any spells in that class, all we do is take care of plants."

"I like gardening," Healy replied while still smiling and looking over the rest of her schedule.

"I like Herbology too," Neville replied in a low stutter. Healy spent the rest of the time asking Harry where the classes were and asking Neville what they did in Herbology.

"All we do is take care of plants," Ron said as he, Harry, Healy, Neville and Hermione began to get up and walk out of the Great Hall towards Greenhouse 3. "Water the plants, re-pot the plants, grow the plants and learn the names of the plants. Woop-de-doo!"

"Herbology is very important for Potions," Hermione said loudly. "Some of those plants are what we use in potions and are needed to help in some spells!"

"Plus, what if you're out in the wilderness and there's nothing around but plants," Healy threw in with a thought. "Got ta know what plant is what and what they do to see if you can use them or eat them or not."

Breakfast rapped up shortly after this, after a conversation about what was where and why Healy wasn't allowed to take random beans from dinner and pass them off as magic beans. Everyone got up and went into groups to go to their classes, Healy was a little disappointed to find out Ginny, Lee and the twins weren't going to be in any of her classes. As they walked away the twins and Lee Jordan gave animated and over exaggerated 'good byes', one involving George breaking down in tears as they left and Fred waving and imaginary handkerchief at them. Ginny said 'good bye' to Healy and then ran over towards some other 1st years to make it to her class.

The group walked out of the school building and down the court yard to one of the 5 open, glass greenhouses until they came to the one with the number '3' on its side. They all stepped in and were greeted with an intense humidity as well as multiple and strong degrees of smells varying from different types of plants and, what must be, several different types of fertilizer. Healy found a seat in between Harry and Neville and sat down, whipping her head back and forth at all the sights that were around them. Outside you could hear different birds, mostly owls, and inside you had layers of plants and vegetation spread out before you in a hodge-podge of botanical research.

"Would you please stop whipping your hair everywhere," Hermione asked. She was sitting right across from Healy and had dodged her hair several times.

"Sorry," Healy said quickly as she stopped. "Does anyone have a hair tie or a rubber band?"

At that time a tall woman with frazzled and stringy blond hair and wearing large glasses and patched clothes walked up beside Healy and handed her a green hair band with a little flower bead on it.

"I never garden without tying my hair back either," the woman said as she handed the hair tie to Healy. "Some of the plants we work with are a little… messy. So it always helps to keep all loose clothing and article as a safe distance!"

"Thanks," Healy said as she pulled her hair back and tied it into a loose pony tail; she could never do a correct or tight pony tail. The woman in patches left with a smile and walked over to a large table with pots and Healy turned her head over to Neville. "Who was that?"

"That was Professor Sprout," Neville said as he looked back from Healy to the professor. "She's the Hufflepuff house representative and the teacher Herbology teacher."

"Huh," Healy began as she looked at the table that had all of the potted plants that seemed be growing nothing. "So Sprout teaches us about plants, huh? That's not a coincidence at all."

The group chatted about this and that as the room filled with more and more different students. Healy began to notice people dressed in robes and with symbols different from Gryffindore's and pointed it out to Harry and Ron.

"Oh yeah," Ron said as he realized something he didn't find too interesting when he first read about it. "We're having this class along with the Hufflepuffs."

"Oh," Healy said as she saw a group of them sit down across from them. "Cool... What's a Hufflepuff?"

"I... have no idea."

As soon as all the seats were filled up Professor Sprout started the class by having them all come up to the table she was at and stand in front of a pot with grass sticking out of it. She then pulled out a large box filled with different, multi-colored headphones and told each student to take one out. Many of the students scrambled to get one that wasn't pink and fluffy, and Healy took one of the pink and fluffy ones; because they were pretty and funny looking to her.

"Today we are going to learn about and re-pot Mandrakes," Professor Sprout announced once she saw that each student had a pair of headphones. "Can anyone tell me what a Mandrake is?"

Healy excitedly popped her hand up in the air and gave it a light wave; learning about plants was easy for her and Devina and Healy had covered them extensively along with Potions and Charms. Healy then noticed that Hermione's hand was up in the air as well and tried to raise it higher to be called on before her. Professor Sprout was a little nervous at the decision but finally called on Healy at the end.

"A mandrake is a plant that looks somewhat like a miniature, green human," Healy began in a singingly tone as she pulled down her hand. "The Mandrake, when an adult, is used in a potion that can cure petrified victims."

"Very good," Professor Sprout said with a smile. Most of the students had gone wide eyed and looked down over at Healy and at Hermione; usually only Hermione knew that much about something that no one else cared about. "Now, does anyone know why no one is supposed to hear the voice, or the cry, of a Mandrake?"

Healy had pulled her hand up for this one as well but Hermione had raised her hand higher and Professor Sprout called on her.

"It's because the cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it," Hermione said quickly.

"That's right. Now toady we will be working with baby Mandrakes, known as the seedlings, and the reason we wear head phones for these is that even though their cry doesn't kill it will knock out a person. Now, I want you all to move into groups of around 4 or 5 and once I say it is alright, you will put on your headphones and work on re-potting the baby Mandrake."

Healy looked over at Harry and Ron and asked if it was alright if she were to work with them. They said it was alright as long as she and Hermione didn't get too excited about working together. Both Healy and Hermione shrugged their shoulders and worked away from each other; Healy beside Harry and Hermione beside Ron. The idea of working with her was fine to Healy, as long as she just didn't talk to her. Neville had joined a group consisting of Dean and a few other Hufflepuffs and one more Hufflepuff had joined the group with Healy. The boy was gushing over rumors and legends he had heard about Harry and about what had happened last year in Hogwarts. Healy hadn't understood a thing she heard, she caught something about his scare and something about some rock but the rest sort of flew over her head as she began to pull on her work gloves. Although that had all sounded very interesting Healy saw that the questions and statements were making Harry both embarrassed and aggravated and Healy decided to try and distract the Hufflepuff.

"So has anyone here actually done this before," Healy asked as she looked at the pot filled with dirt that seemed undisturbed. "I mean, is it like re-potting any other old plant?"

"It's a bit different," the Hufflepuff boy said excitedly. Healy decided the kid must have ADHD all the way if he was this enthusiastic about everything. Cute but sort of annoying, she now knew how everyone felt around her. "You just have to be really careful with magickal plants, since these won't usually sit still or anything. You're from America, right? I bet it's way wicked over there! I've heard a lot of stories about it, and a few about you from some of the first years-"

Healy gave the kid a smile at first but as he went on and on and on and on her lack-luster smile turned into an exaughsted grimace. He wasn't even asking her questions anymore! Just sort of mindlessly babbling. Healy began to tone the boy about at this point, finding it annoying to gratify people who asked questions when they knew the answers. Healy just smiled and nodded her head every now and then as the boy talked. At one point she looked over at Harry and he shot her a knowing glance and nodded in a way that said: "it gets better".

Once Professor Sprout had said for everyone to put on their headphone, Healy putting on hers and getting a few snickers which she replied by smiling and flapping her hair as if she was in a fashion show. Once everyone couldn't hear a thing the Professor used her bare hand to dig in through the dirt to loosen something up and the grabbed the grass and pulled up what looked like a naked, green baby that was screaming at the top of its lungs. It didn't look that much like a baby either; the thing's head had long green and purple grass coming out of it and the body was so wrinkled and jostled it seemed that its appendages were roots more than hands or feet.

Ron was the first one to try and pull the Mandrake out but struggled for a whole 4 minutes until Hermione had motioned for him to stop. She was trying to explain something to him through charades but it was all too complicated, and much funnier to watch Hermione get mad and try yelling something at him and not have him hear her. Healy noticed that Ron must have thought the same thing too as he was making signals that he couldn't hear/understand her and kept covering the grin on his face. Finally Healy decided to be proactive and dug her own bare hand into the pot to feel around and loosen up the Mandrake. After that Harry pulled the grass and out came the baby Mandrake easily; all scream-y and screwy faced. It was kind of cute to Healy, like a really ugly, puke-green baby that was so ugly that made it cute. Healy made coo-ing noises that even she couldn't hear and took the thing from Harry and held it in her hands, it was kind of rubbery feeling. The group re-potted the thing and watered it and then repeated the whole thing once more as they were the first ones done.

At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout said they did a good job, and watched a Hufflepuff girl be pulled away to the infirmary since she had passed out from her headphones being too loose and heard the over-baring screeches and screams of the baby Mandrakes. After being dismissed Harry, Healy, Ron and Hermione all left greenhouse 3 together and walked up to the school together. Healy was picking dirt from underneath her fingers as they did this but smiled.

"Are all our classes this fun," Healy asked Harry as she wiped her hands on her robe.

"Well," Harry began and looked over at Ron and then Hermione but then looked back at Healy. "They're mostly all pretty interesting."


End file.
